Note on the chemical mechanics of cell-division

Abstract

1) If a thread moistened with a base, or a sufficiently concentrated solution of the base, be laid across a diameter of a drop of oil containing a trace of fatty acid, the drop undergoes division along that diameter. 2) If the thread be merely smeared with a soap of the base, even in the presence of considerable excess of fatty acid, the same result is achieved; the effect is therefore due to soap formation and not to hydroxylions. 3) The mechanical division of the droplets is brought about by violent streaming movements from the equator of the drop towards the poles, due to the lowering of the surface-tension in the equatorial region brought about by the soap. It is pointed out that these facts confirmLoeb's hypothesis that cell-division is brought about through the mechanical agency of streaming phenomena. 4) It is suggested that the equatorial lowering of surface-tension and consequent streaming phenomena which lead to cell-division are brought about by cholin or soaps of cholin liberated in the cell through the splitting of Lecithin in Nuclein synthesis.