Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1407 sci.misc:2235 sci.research:451 Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!ucbvax!agate!eos!amelia!ames!amdahl!pacbell!hoptoad!dasys1!cucard!aecom!diaz From: diaz@aecom.YU.EDU (Dizzy Dan) Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.misc,sci.research Subject: Re: Strange results in Nature article Summary: Ordered water alone carrying information? -- Phooey! Occam's razor, where are you? Message-ID: <1927@aecom.YU.EDU> Date: 29 Jul 88 16:39:52 GMT References: <10465@lll-winken.llnl.gov> <20850@beta.lanl.gov> <2444@cxsea.UUCP> <4536@ut-emx.UUCP> Organization: Graduate School of Hard Knocks Lines: 47 Look, these degranulation results with Beneviste's infinitely diluted antibody are certainly funky. What's just as funky are the explanations people will come up with when such a mystery arises. X-ray diffraction of polypeptides and polynuclotides has shown that water molecules associated with amino acids and nucleotides will often order themselves in a regular pattern, detectable using crystallographic methods. Such ordered water can also be seen with nuclear magnetic resonance. Such ordered molecules are either directly in contact with a macromolecular component or another water which is itself associated with the protein or nucleic acid. In all cases, such ordered water shells are no more than 1-2 molecules thick to my knowledge. Despite the great electrostatic fields generated by macromolecules they usually do not influence the structure of water more than a few Van der waals radii beyond their surfaces. What I'm leading to is the fact that aside from its association with solutes and self-association in the solid phase, water usually takes on a random structure. If we've got some water "ghost" of the immunoglobulin degranulating the basophils then how did we get it? The structure of the antibody is presumably complementary to the structure of its binding site on the surface antibodies on the basophil. So first we have to have an ordered water matrix which is complementary to the degranulating antibody, right? We then have to make a complementary ordered matrix of this first impression in order to regenerate the antibody combining site of the degranulating antibody. Sounds as complicated as protein synthesis to me! We've got some serum albumin and salts in the diluent. Are these components sufficient to induce this primary and secondary antibody impression duplication system? What I wonder is whether whatever is degranulating the basophils is working by the same mechanism as the antibody. Before we start this physically and biochemically dubious game of postulating ordered water ghosts, we'd better find out whether the observed degranulation has anything to do with the surface antibodies on the basophil. If there's some ordered water matrix that mimics the antibody combining site then it seems to me that this ghost should bind to an Fab fragment of the antibody on the basophil. If we study the binding of water by diffraction or NMR we should see something different when using first deionized water and secondly infinitely diluted antibody solution. My guess is that it's all a curious artifact we'll all be telling our graduate students about in a few years. -- dn/dx Dept Molecular Biology diaz@aecom.yu.edu Dizzy Dan Al Einstein's Med School Big Bad Bronx, NY