Biophysical Reviews and Letters

We analyze the experimental data on fluorescence of DNA complexes inside neutrophils in flow cytometry with nanometer spatial resolution. Fluorescence visualizes oxidative activity of DNA and unusual statistics for DNA complex of full set of chromosomes. The exponential increasing of high-order central moments for fluctuations of fluorescence intensity characterizes the existence of intermittency in oxidative activity of DNA. Intermittency depends on the scales (on rank) of DNA networks in given cells. In the large-scale networks (with the scales$>$12% size of the cells), here occurs the switching to the exponential decreasing of high-order central moments for fluctuations intensity, i.e. stable oxidative activity of DNA as it is assumed for small-scale gene networks. Distributions of Hölder’s averages and high-order moments for fluctuations intensity depend on the health status and can be used for high sensitive diagnostics of health. Intermittency of large-scale correlations reflects general natural property of DNA activity and immune response on various perturbations. Intermittency reflects the mutual actions of all large-scale correlations in dense fractal networks for DNA activity and synchronization of all excitations and correlations of all chromosomes in the cells.

In this work, the effect of electromagnetic waves of millimeter diapason (EMW MM) on both melting parameters of serum albumin from human blood and its solution density has been studied. It was shown that the irradiation of albumin solution results in protein denaturation at higher temperatures than in the case of nonirradiated samples, which indicates the increase of albumin packing degree. It was also shown that the enhancement of albumin solution density takes place which indicates the protein packing degree change as well. The obtained data show that the effect of EMW MM does not depend on frequency of these waves, because alterations are revealed at all studied frequencies — 41.8, 48 and 51.8GHz.

We consider a general growth mechanism, which acts at cellular level and above (organs, systems and whole organisms). Using its mathematical representation, the growth equation, we study the growth and division mechanisms of amoeba and fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe. We show how this mechanism, together with biomolecular machinery, governs growth and reproduction of cells, and these organisms in particular. This mechanism provides revealing answers to fundamental questions of biology, like why cells grow and divide, why and when cells’ growth stops. It also sheds light on questions like why and how life originated and developed. Solving the growth equation, we obtain analytical expression for the growth curve of fission yeast as a function of geometrical characteristics and nutrient influxes for RNA and protein synthesis, and compare the computed growth curves with 85 experiments. Statistical evaluation shows that these growth curves correspond to experimental data significantly better than all previous approximations. Also, using the general growth mechanism, we show how metabolic characteristics of cells, their size and evolutionary traits relate, considering fission yeast. In particular, we found that fission yeast S. pombe consumes about 16–18 times more nutrients for maintenance needs than for biomass synthesis.