Elsevier

Biosystems

Volume 109, Issue 2, August 2012, Pages 126-132
Biosystems

Biostructural theory of the living systems

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2012.02.006Get rights and content

Abstract

Eugen Macovschi is among the few scientists who tried, and partly succeeded, to explain the differences between “dead” and “living” in biological sciences. He discovered and characterized the so-called biostructure of the living bodies and worked out a biostructural theory, which is the first supramolecular conception in biology. Nevertheless, complex biological systems are currently considered only from the molecular point of view, although they may be regarded as specific phenomena on highly structured bodies within the four-dimensional Universe. According to Macovschi, the biostructure provides organisms with life properties and controls their life processes and chemical changes. Nevertheless, plant cells or bacterial ones differ much from the animal or human cells. In fact, there are various biostructures which are related with cell properties. Hence, this theory creates confusions and cannot be easily used to explain all the properties of the biosystems. Consequently, it is our goal to highlight the principles, advantages, limitations, and applications of the biostructural theory, which might support new ideas and theories in modern life sciences.

Introduction

Since 1958, Eugen Macovschi (1906–1985), a Romanian biologist and chemist, has asserted that the living organisms possess another form of differently structured matter giving them living features (Macovschi, 1969, Macovschi, 1976). He named it biostructure, and this kind of biological structure is present within the living cell together with the well-known molecular substances and solutions. Starting from the relationship between structure and properties in chemistry, he conceived living features as related to a biological structure in living cells and organisms. On using just a laboratory press he was able to demonstrate the presence of so-called biostructure or biostructured matter in the living cells, which is a supramolecular biosystem responsible for the living features. Unfortunately, most biologists have no idea about the biostructure or the biostructural theory because Macovschi's experiments and concepts were mostly published in Romanian and Russian. Besides, the few articles published in French or English appeared in journals of national or local interest, such as Revue Roumaine de Biochimie. It is known that the living organisms consist of chemical combinations and these latter of molecules. Hence, it follows the belief that in vivo the molecules have the main role. However, according to Macovschi's theory, living matter consists of two qualitatively distinct and interdependent forms that are mutually transforming one into another: biostructured matter (biostructure) – the living matter itself – and coexistent molecular matter (chemical combinations) – a non-living matter (Macovschi, 1981a).

Numerous physicochemical theories have been advanced by now to explain the nature of the living matter such as membrane theory (Offner, 1970), sorption (Troschin, 1968) and association-induction (Ling, 1994, Ling, 1998) theories. The membrane theory was formulated by the German neurophysiologist J. Bernstein in 1902 and developed by the British scientists P. Boyle and E. Conway in 1941 and A. Hodgkin, B. Katz, and A. Huxley in 1949 (Bernstein, 1912, Hodgkin and Huxley, 1952, Hodgkin and Katz, 1949a, Hodgkin and Katz, 1949b). They have become parts of the so-called molecular conception, which was proved to be very promising to help the biological studies up to the intracellular and molecular level. However, the modern biology developed in the light of the molecular conception has not yet succeeded to give a satisfactory explanation to the problem of the nature of the living matter, to its qualitative specific character. It cannot make the difference between “dead” and “living”. Moreover, these theories were not comprehensive enough for all of the experimental data acquired of late in life sciences.

Section snippets

The biostructural theory

Macovschi and his co-workers started from the observation that after exposing to 200 atm hydrostatic pressure, the tissues remain alive, and if their life depends on the biostructure integrity, it means that the biostructured matter can stand rather high hydrostatic pressures without breakdown, i.e. without releasing its content of water. He called this kind of water as biostructured water. By pressing-out the living tissues, only the free water and the substances dissolved in it are removed in

The biostructured water

The biostructural theory considers three water species in the living tissues, and not only two, as conceived by modern molecular biology. A content of 19% free and 61% biostructure-integrated water of rabbit striated muscle tissue have been determined using the pressing-out method (Macovschi O., 1979, Macovschi and Botoşăneanu, 1963). The biostructured water is the water integrated in the biostructure of the living tissues. This kind of water has different characteristics from those of both

Aging and biostructure

In order to elucidate the biological cause of aging, Galavina based her experiments on the biostructural conception on the nature and structure of the living matter (Galavina, 2008). As a result, she reached the conclusion that the decrease of biostructure is a fundamental cause of aging. Alzheimer disease is also characterized by substantial shrinkage in the brain over the time (den Heijer et al., 2006, Hořínek et al., 2007). Consequently, the role of amygdale volume in the assessment of

Concluding remarks

Eugen Macovschi founded the biostructural theory based on the idea that the living state is determined by a peculiar structure. According to his conception, the living protoplasm is integrated into a particular structure, which he called “biostructure” and the other part is an intracellular solution. The biostructure is not a chemical or physicochemical structure, but a higher, biological, unceasingly developing structure. Hence, the biostructure is a biological entity, which obeys biological

Acknowledgment

Financial support by Romanian Government, Contract CNCSIS 313/2011 is gratefully acknowledged.

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