Murburn redox bioenergetics and ROS-radiations connectivity: Insights into the origin, evolution, sustenance and termination of life!

Research leading to murburn (‘mured burning’) concept disclosed the previously ignored, yet unavoidable central physiological function of diffusible reactive (oxygen/sulfur/nitrogen) species (abbreviated as DRS or DROS/DRSS/DRNS) at low concentrations, namely that of coupling factors in numerous redox-processes, like oxidative-/photo-phosphorylation, leading to direct in fluid ATP synthesis by exergonic radical reactions. The formation of oxygen-centric anions/radicals near proteins/membrane surfaces leads to effective charge separation (ECS), serving as the origin of ‘cellular electrical activity’. The stochastic interactive chemical equilibriums of DRS with components in the fluid (ADP, Pi, and others) are characterized by an observable new type of stochastic, hormetic and idiosyncratic ‘outside active center’ mechanism/kinetics. In conjunction with coacervate organization, murburn could maintain discrete ion and solute differentials across ‘islets’ of different phases without ion-pumping or deterministic electron transport chains. Murburn-type reactions within pre-biotic coacervates afforded powering, coherence, homeostasis, electro-mechanical features and sensing/responding abilities (PCHEMS: the ‘instant’ functions of life), later supplemented and propagated by deterministic genetic means (central dogma) in cellular systems. As murburn (with ECS-DRS as core physiology) and coacervation rooted cellular PCHEMS since life’s origin (evidenced currently by the incorporation of convoluted lipid-membrane enriched structures of mitochondria and chloroplasts as the bioenergetic micro-organelles) and sustained it thereafter, normal aging, disease, evolution and termination must be understood in the new framework. Further, this write-up provides a viable thermodynamic rationale for DRS-radiation connectivity in routine/pathological cellular functions.