The Part Played by Structural Elements 

 in the Biochemical Function of Cells 



N. M. SISAKYAN 

 A.N. Bakh Institute of Biochemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., Moscow 



An important feature of the development of contemporary biochemistry is the 

 way in which it penetrates deeper and deeper in its knowledge of the processes 

 which take place within the cell. There has now accumulated a large amount of 

 literature devoted to various aspects of the biochemistry of the organoids of 

 cells [1-12]. 



Low temperatures, differential centrifugation, isotopes, chromatography, 

 spectroscopy and electron microscopy, which are widely used in biochemical 

 experiments, have provided the prerequisites for the study of the chemical 

 mechanism of microstructures and for the understanding, on that basis, of the 

 significance of the various intracellular structures in the biochemical function 

 of the cell. In this respect we are hving in a period when the objects forming 

 the subjects of biochemical investigation become smaller and smaller. As a result 

 of extensive investigations carried out in various laboratories over the last 10 to 

 15 years, there has arisen a general picture of the localization of biochemical 

 properties within cells. It would seem that the structural formations of the cell 

 differ in important respects from one another, both in their chemical composi- 

 tion and in their enzymic activity, and that some enzymic systems and com- 

 pounds are preferentially concentrated in particular structural elements of the 

 cell. These studies have provided the prerequisites for the development of the 

 'biochemical topography' of cells and for an understanding, based on this, of 

 the interdependence of structures and functions. 



From the point of view of contemporary biochemistry, structural organization 

 in the origin of the first forms of life on the Earth is of specially great importance. 

 According to the ideas of A. I. Oparin [13] the formation of coacervates 

 signalized the appearance of a quahtatively new and significantly more dynamic 

 system of reactions. 



The orderliness and harmony of biochemical processes, which is characteristic 

 of the living cell, is achieved owing to the heterogeneity of protoplasm, which 

 made its appearance at the very beginning of the existence of life and has 

 continued to change in the direction of greater complexity and differentiation 

 throughout the course of the evolution of living forms. 



Thus the heterogeneity of protoplasm would appear to have been a necessary 

 condition for the localization of biochemical properties in the cell. As a result 

 of heterogeneity in the presence of selectivity of the ingredients of protoplasm 



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