Biophysical Thermodynamics of Intracellular Processes: Molecular Machines of the Living Cell [Paperback]

1 Introduction.- 2 Thermodynamics and Chemical Kinetics of Living Systems.- 2.1. How Scientists Learned to Distinguish Energy from Force (Brief Historic Review).- 2.2. Kinetics and Thermodynamics of Chemical Reactions.- 2.3. Applicability of Equilibrium and Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics to Biological Systems and Processes.- 2.4. The Mechanisms of Energy Coupling in Chemical Reactions.- 3 Molecular Machines: Mechanics and/or Statistics?.- 3.1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics and Its Application to Biochemical Systems.- 3.2. Energy-Transducing Molecular Machines.- 3.3. Statistical Thermodynamics of Small Systems, Fluctuations, and the Violation of the Mass Action Law.- 4 Principles of Enzyme Catalysis.- 4.1. Introduction.- 4.2. Earlier Theories of Enzyme Catalysis.- 4.3. The Relaxation Concept of Enzyme Catalysis.- 4.4. Protein Dynamics and Enzyme Functioning.- 5 Energy Transduction in Biological Membranes.- 5.1. Introduction: Two Views on the Problem of Energy Coupling in Biomembranes.- 5.2. Transmembrane Electrochemical Proton Gradients in Chloroplasts.- 5.3. Mechanism of ATP Formation Catalyzed by H+ATPsynthases.- Afterword.The main goal of this book is to describe in physical terms the peculiar features of machines having molecular dimensions that play the principal role in the most important biological processes. The book is aimed at scientists and graduate students of biochemistry and biophysics as well as biologists and physicians working in this field.