Key result
Single molecule detection reveals that biological molecular machines, unlike artificial machines, utilize thermal fluctuations to function efficiently and flexibly.
This review highlights how biological molecular machines, such as myosin, uniquely integrate thermal noise to achieve high efficiency and flexibility, distinguishing them from artificial machines.
May inform bio-inspired cardiac device design; leaves open clinical translation of thermal principles.
Single molecule detection has contributed to our understanding of the unique mechanisms of life. Unlike artificial man-made machines, biological molecular machines integrate thermal noises rather than avoid them. For example, single molecule detection has demonstrated that myosin motors undergo biased Brownian motion for stepwise movement and that single protein molecules spontaneously change their conformation, for switching to interactions with other proteins, in response to thermal fluctuation. Thus, molecular machines have flexibility and efficiency not seen in artificial machines.
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Yanagida et al. (2017) reported a review. Single molecule detection reveals that biological molecular machines, unlike artificial machines, utilize thermal fluctuations to function efficiently and flexibly.
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