Open question: Water structures and their implications for the biological cell

Frank Mayer

doi:10.15761/hce.1000113

Abstract

Open question: Water structures and their implications for the biological cell

Highlights

Water is the indispensable element of life
One of the pioneers in the field was Philippa Wiggins with her paper on enzymes and two-state water [2], a summary of her previous experimental work. Based on her earlier findings on two states of water, experiments dealing with activities of microorganisms and “membrane-bound” enzymes in water-restricted environments [3] and with enzymes in water-in-oil microemulsions [4] were performed
There, according to Philippa Wiggins the water has the state of lower density, whereas high density water-to balance out the overall density of the total water content inside the reversed micelle-is located as a lining at the hydrophilic inner face of the “wall” of the reversed micelle

Summary

Introduction

Water is the indispensable element of life. Many efforts have been made to discover its properties beyond those observed in our daily life. One of the pioneers in the field was Philippa Wiggins with her paper on enzymes and two-state water [2], a summary of her previous experimental work. Based on her earlier findings on two states of water (low density water, high density water, and “interfacial water”, i.e., water close to surfaces), experiments dealing with activities of microorganisms and “membrane-bound” enzymes in water-restricted environments [3] and with enzymes (hydrogenases) in water-in-oil microemulsions [4] were performed.

Results

Conclusion