Tubulin in vitro, in vivo and in silico
Abstract
Tubulin, microtubules and associated proteins were studied theoretically, computationally and experimentally in vitro and in vivo in order to elucidate the possible role these play in cellular information processing and storage. Use of the electric dipole moment of tubulin as the basis for binary switches (biobits) in nanofabricated circuits was explored with surface plasmon resonance, refractometry and dielectric spectroscopy. The effects of burdening the microtubular cytoskeleton of olfactory associative memory neurons with excess microtubule associated protein TAU in Drosophila fruitflies were determined. To investigate whether tubulin may be used as the substrate for quantum computation as a bioqubit, suggestions for experimental detection of quantum coherence and entanglement among tubulin electric dipole moment states were developed.
Subject
tubulinmicrotubules
dielectric
spectroscopy
surface
plasmon
resonance
simulation
drosophila
memory
olfactory
quantum
brain
qubit
biobit
bioqubit
teleportation
refractometry
dipole
moment
protein
Citation
Mershin, Andreas (2003). Tubulin in vitro, in vivo and in silico. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /1635.