Chemiosmotic systems in medicine

Abstract

The concept of chemiosmotic systems arises from the pioneering work of Peter Mitchell on two fronts. One is concerned with the mechanisms by which molecules are transported across membranes which are generally barriers to such transport. These mechanisms are inevitably molecular, and are now yielding their secrets to a combination of structural protein chemistry and molecular biology. The other front is more physiological, and explores the functional relationships between metabolism and transport. Nevertheless, the two fronts form a continuum of mutally related structure and function. Chemiosmotic systems provide a hierarchy of complexity, starting from say a uniporter reconstituted in a chemically defined bilayer, and proceeding to greater complexity in mitochondria, chloroplasts, eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell membranes, and multicellular systems. Their relationship to medicine is profound, because they provide many opportunities for therapeutic intervention. In this paper I present an overview of chemiosmotic systems at different levels of complexity, both molecular and biological, of their involvements in pathology, and of possible pharmacological treatment or prevention of disease.