The Molecular Switch: Signaling and Allostery

A signature feature of living organisms is their ability to carry out purposeful actions by taking stock of the world around them. To that end, cells have an arsenal of signaling molecules linked together in signaling pathways, which switch between inactive and active conformations. The Molecular Switch articulates a biophysical perspective on signaling, showing how allostery--a powerful explanation of how molecules function across all biological domains--can be reformulated using equilibrium statistical mechanics, applied to diverse biological systems exhibiting switching behaviors, and successfully unify seemingly unrelated phenomena.

Rob Phillips weaves together allostery and statistical mechanics via a series of biological vignettes, each of which showcases an important biological question and accompanying physical analysis. Beginning with the study of ligand-gated ion channels and their role in problems ranging from muscle action to vision, Phillips then undertakes increasingly sophisticated case studies, from bacterial chemotaxis and quorum sensing to hemoglobin and its role in mammalian physiology. He looks at G-protein coupled receptors as well as the role of allosteric molecules in gene regulation. Phillips concludes by surveying problems in biological fidelity and offering a speculative chapter on the relationship between allostery and biological Maxwell demons.

Appropriate for graduate students and researchers in biophysics, physics, engineering, biology, and neuroscience, The Molecular Switch presents a unified, quantitative model for describing biological signaling phenomena.

生物體的一個特點是它們能夠通過對周圍世界的觀察來進行有目的的行動。為此，細胞擁有一系列連接在一起的信號分子，形成信號通路，這些通路在非活性和活性構型之間切換。《分子開關》以生物物理學的角度闡述了信號傳遞，展示了如何使用平衡統計力學對變態作出解釋，應用於展示切換行為的多樣生物系統，並成功地統一看似無關的現象。

羅伯·菲利普斯通過一系列生物學片段將變態和統計力學結合在一起，每個片段都展示了一個重要的生物學問題和相應的物理分析。從研究配體門控離子通道及其在肌肉運動到視覺等問題中的作用開始，菲利普斯進一步進行了越來越複雜的案例研究，從細菌趋化和群體感應到血紅蛋白及其在哺乳動物生理中的作用。他還探討了G蛋白偶聯受體以及變態分子在基因調控中的作用。菲利普斯最後概述了生物保真度的問題，並提出了一個關於變態和生物麥克斯韋惡魔之間關係的推測性章節。

《分子開關》適合生物物理學、物理學、工程學、生物學和神經科學的研究生和研究人員閱讀，它提供了一個統一的、定量的模型來描述生物信號傳遞現象。

Rob Phillips is the Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics and Biology at the California Institute of Technology. He is the author of Crystals, Defects and Microstructures and coauthor of Physical Biology of the Cell and Cell Biology by the Numbers.

Rob Phillips是加州理工學院的Fred和Nancy Morris生物物理學和生物學教授。他是《Crystals, Defects and Microstructures》的作者，也是《Physical Biology of the Cell》和《Cell Biology by the Numbers》的合著者。