Structured Water Is Changing Models
Large water-molecule clusters may be crucial to cellular processes
By Bennett Daviss

Courtesy of Martin Chaplin

Researchers are beginning to glimpse water's secret social life. Evidence is
mounting that water in living systems naturally gathers into frameworks of
14, 17, 21, 196, 280, or more molecules. Some say that the clusters'
apparent existence necessitates redesigning simulation models of life
processes. And support is growing behind the idea that these intricate
structures play key roles in operations ranging from molecular binding to
turning on and off basic cell processes.

Such huge clusters certainly exist under some conditions, according to
Richard Saykally, professor of chemistry at University of California,
Berkeley. Saykally has spent years studying isolated water clusters using
laser spectroscopy techniques that he developed. "There is no theoretical or
practical limit on the size that these clusters could grow to," he says,
adding that their life spans are limited only by their collisions with other
molecules, an event that, within the stormy cell interior, usually occurs
every few picoseconds.

EVIDENCE AMASSING Using infrared spectroscopy, two research groups recently
added to the evidence that clusters of dozens or even hundreds of water
molecules exist in nature. Many chemists are intrigued by the uses nature
might have for such structures. A team led by William Royer at the
University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, has shown
experimentally that 17-molecule water clusters can serve as a communications
medium between protein subunits. Chemist Martha Teeter at Boston College has
found that clusters of 30 or more water molecules mediate some protein
binding. Martin Chaplin at London's South Bank University posits an even
more radical model for how cluster dynamics may make it possible for cells
to maintain ion gradients without spending energy. Further, he contends that
collapsing water structures may serve as signaling switches in the cell.

Full Text at The Scientist.com
http://www.the-scientist.com/yr2004/nov/research_041108.html

Comment:
Could this structure have also been a precursory form of life in, say, the
ancient sea?

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek
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