Special Issue "Molecular Machines and Nanomachines"

Guest Editor
Dr. Michelle Critchley
Therapeutic Delivery, NanoVentures Australia Ltd, Suite 201, 3 Chester St, Oakleigh, Victoria 3166, Australia
Website: http://www.nvaustralia.com.au/
E-Mail:

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Steven Langford
Department of Chemistry, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne 3800, Victoria, Australia
Website: http://www.chem.monash.edu.au/staff/langford/interests.html
E-Mail:

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Trevor Lithgow
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Building 77, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Australia
Website: http://www.med.monash.edu.au/biochem/staff/lithgow.html
E-Mail:

Dear Colleagues,

Nanotechnology, and particularly research into nanomachines and molecular machines, represents an exciting area of translational research. It is a very hot topic.

Nanomachines are mechanical or electromechanical devices of nanometer size, and are largely in “research-and-development phase”. Current speculation has high hopes for the use of nanomachines in medical technology: whether to supply lost function to the immune system in detecting pathogens or as a smart surveillance system to detect toxic chemicals in our bodies or in our environment.

Molecular machines are devices within our cells that drive essential biological processes, with the component parts of these machines each contributing a partial function or structural element to the overall machine. The multiple components act together to enable a cellular function. Good examples include bacterial flagella, the RNA polymerase, and various protein transport machines that selectively transfer protein molecules across biological membranes. A current innovation in nanotechnology concerns the design and manufacture of synthetic molecular machines, which may or may not have a biological machine as inspiration.

The distinction between nanomachines and molecular machines is not always clear and our treatment of the “two” topics in this single volume is aimed at illuminating the complementary nature of these fields of research.

Dr. Michelle Critchley
Prof. Dr. Steven Langford
Prof. Dr. Trevor Lithgow
Guest Editors

Related Special Issue in other Journals

Molecular Machines and Nanomachines in Micromachines

Submission

All manuscripts should be submitted to ijms@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. The International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this Open Access journal is 1000 CHF per accepted paper.

• nanomachine
• molecular machine
• nanotechnology
• molecular motors
• nanobots

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Neural Membrane Signaling Platforms
Author: Ron Wallace
Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Central Florida, Box 25000, Orlando, 32816 Florida, USA; E-Mail: rwallace@pegasus.cc.ucf.edu
Abstract: Throughout much of the history of biology, the cell membrane was functionally defined as a semi-permeable barrier separating aqueous compartments, and an anchoring site for proteins. Little attention was devoted to its possible regulatory role in intracellular molecular processes and neuron electrical signaling. This article reviews the history of membrane studies and the current state of the art. Emphasis is placed on natural and artificial membrane studies of electric field effects on molecular organization, especially as these may relate to impulse propagation in neurons. Implications of these studies for new designs in artificial intelligence are briefly examined.
Keywords: microdomains; rafts; lipids; neurons; artificial intelligence

Type of Paper: Review
Title: Molecular Nanocomputers: Current Status and Future Prospect
Author: Samuel C. Lee
Affiliation: School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA; E-Mail: samlee@ou.edu
Abstract: This paper reviews the development of the theory and design of molecular nanocomputers in the past decade and reports research efforts in the areas of technologies, architectures, fault tolerance, and software design tools. It covers from the design of basic parts such as molecular wires, switches, transistors, etc., to the fabrication of elementary devices such as registers, counters, adders, etc. Based on the recent progress, this paper discusses the possible future development of molecular nanocomputers which have all of the essential parts of today’s microcomputers such as ALU, CU, memory, and I/O for the next decade and beyond.

Type of Paper: Article
Title: Remarks on Muscle Contraction Mechanism II. Isometric Tension Transient and Isotonic Velocity Transient
Authors: Toshio Mitsui¹, Nobukatsu Takai² and Hiroyuki Ohshima³
Affiliations: ¹ Osaka University, Osaka, Japan; E-Mail: t-mitsui@jttk.zaq.ne.jp
² Departement of Electronics and Information Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Hokkai-Gakuen University, Sapporo, Japan
³ Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tokyo, University of Science, Noda, Japan
Abstract: The power-stroke model on the muscle contraction mechanism was criticized and a new model was proposed, as reviewed in [1]. In 2008, Mitsui and Ohshima refined the model and discussed the steady filament sliding in detail demonstrating that the calculation results are in very good agreement with experimental observations [2]. They also outlined the discussion on the isometric tension transient and isotonic velocity transient given in [1] by citing some calculation results. Thereafter, however, a few readers of [1] commented that it is very difficult to understand the discussion on the transient phenomena in [1], since there is no detailed explanation on the molecular processes on which the theoretical treatment is based upon. In the present paper, we have largely revised this part of [1], trying to make the discussion more readable. Obtained calculation results reproduce the characteristic features of the experimental observations on the isometric tension transient by Ford, Huxley and Simmons (1985) and on the isotonic velocity transient by Civan and Podolsky (1966). Ratios of the extensibility for the crossbridge, myosin filament and actin filament are estimated as about 0.22, 0.24 and 0.54, respectively.
References: [1] Mitsui, T. Induced potential model of muscular contraction mechanism and myosin molecular structure. Adv. Biophys. 1999, 36, 107-158.
[2] Mitsui, T.; Ohshima, H. Remarks on muscle contraction mechanism. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2008, 9, 872-904.