Advances in Physiology Education, Vol 268, Issue 6 40-S48, Copyright © 1995 by American Physiological Society
A simplified representation of biochemical principles based on the dynamics of chemical flow systems
J. Tienari
Department of Pathology, University of Helsinki, Finland.
This work suggests that the amount of information included in biochemistry
texts is artificially increased, because the knowledge presented contains
tautologies that are obscured by the use of inappropriate methods of
representation. The work then proposes alternative methods of
representation for describing biochemical systems that are based on the
dynamics of an idealized chemical open-flow system. They would clarify the
fact, in an open system, the concentrations of the reactants and reaction
products depend not only on the equilibrium constants but on the absolute
velocities of the reactions as well. Similar rules apply to phenomena
involving other processes, such as diffusion of ions. Biochemical systems
are considered as a set of chemical flow systems in which individual
processes have the potential for interactions if their end products
influence the rate of other processes. These interactions are used to
explain how biochemical systems maintain themselves in states of high
order. By use of these formulations, some of the logical sequences by which
biochemical principles can be deduced from the principles of chemistry can
be given simple and illustrative expression.
