Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan.
Crit Rev Biochem Mol Biol. 2011 Aug;46(4):310-26. doi: 10.3109/10409238.2011.582081. Epub 2011 May 27.
How small can a macroscopic object be made without losing its intended function? Obviously, the smallest possible size is determined by the size of an atom, but it is not so obvious how many atoms are required to assemble an object so small, and yet that performs the same function as its macroscopic counterpart. In this review, we are concerned with objects of intermediate nature, lying between the microscopic and the macroscopic world. In physics and chemistry literature, this regime in-between is often called mesoscopic, and is known to bear interesting and counterintuitive features. After a brief introduction to the concept of mesoscopic systems from the perspective of physics, we discuss the functional aspects of mesoscopic architectures in cell biology, and supramolecular chemistry through many examples from the literature. We argue that the biochemistry of the cell is largely regulated by mesoscopic functional architectures; however, the significance of mesoscopic phenomena seems to be quite underappreciated in biological sciences. With this motivation, one of our main purposes here is to emphasize the critical role that mesoscopic structures play in cell biology and biochemistry.
一个宏观物体可以小到什么程度而不失去其预期的功能？显然，最小的可能尺寸由原子的大小决定，但要组装一个如此小的物体，并且其执行与宏观对应物相同的功能，需要多少个原子就不那么明显了。在这篇综述中，我们关注的是处于微观世界和宏观世界之间的中间性质的物体。在物理和化学文献中，这个介于两者之间的范围通常被称为介观，并且已知具有有趣和违反直觉的特征。在简要介绍了从物理角度来看的介观系统的概念之后，我们通过文献中的许多例子讨论了细胞生物学和超分子化学中的介观结构的功能方面。我们认为，细胞的生物化学在很大程度上受到介观功能结构的调节；然而，介观现象的重要性在生物学科学中似乎被低估了。出于这个动机，我们的主要目的之一是强调介观结构在细胞生物学和生物化学中所扮演的关键角色。
