ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

118 Cytoskeleton/Cytocomputer
5.5.3 Ciliary and Collective Movement
Figure 5.25: Axoplasmic transport occurs by coordinated activities of sidearm,
contractile proteins (“dynein”), which cooperatively pass material in a “bucket
brigade.” The orchestration mechanism is unknown, but shown here as the
consequence of signaling by “soliton” waves of tubulin conformational states. By
Fred Anderson.
The structure of cilia and flagella is a core of parallel microtubules in a
cylindrical “9+2” arrangement of doublet or triplet microtubules. The
arrangement is similar to centrioles which are also cylinders of 9 MT triplets, but
without the additional central pair. Motor cilia and flagella have actin wound
around their central pair of MT. The side arm proteins which connect the parallel
microtubules are called links, spokes, or sidearms and are comprised of dynein,
the contractile protein which utilizes ATP energy to produce force. Cilia and
flagella are anchored inside the cell to basal bodies which are also composed of