Quantum Mechanical Design of Molecular Electronics OR Gate for Regulation of Minimal Cell Functions

Artificial living cells and their substructures are self-assembling due to electron correlation interactions among biological and water molecules which leads to appearing the attraction dispersion forces and hydrogen bonds. Dispersion forces are weak intermolecular forces that arise from the attractive force between quantum multipoles. A hydrogen bond is a special type of quantum attractive interaction that exists between an electronegative atom and a hydrogen atom bonded to another electronegative atom and this hydrogen atom exist in two quantum states. The best method to simulate these dispersion forces and hydrogen bonds is to perform quantum mechanical non-local density functional potential calculations of artificial minimal living cells consisting of around 400 atoms. The cell systems studied are based on peptide nucleic acid and are 3.5–4.5 nm in diameter. The electron tunneling and associated light absorption of most intense transitions as calculated by the time dependent density functional theory method differs from spectroscopic experiments by only 0.3 nm, which are within the value of experiment errors. This agreement implies that the quantum mechanically self-assembled structure of artificial minimal living cells very closely approximate the realistic ones. Analysis of time dependent density functional theory method calculated absorption spectrum and images of electron transfer trajectories in the different excited states allow to separate two different logically controlled functions of molecular device consisting of Guanine≡Cytosine-PNA-1,4-dihydroquinoxaline-1,4-bis(N,N-dimethylamino)naphthalene supermolecule and Van der Waals forces bonded precursor of fatty acid molecule. These two different logically controlled functions of minimal cells (protocells) are: (1) initiation of metabolic fatty acid production in the excited states 13th, 17th and 23th, 24th, 26th or (2) initiation of gene dehybridization in the 16th excited state. It is possible to initiate the metabolic fatty acid production illuminating this artificial minimal cell by wavelengths: 569.7 nm, 523.2 nm, 487.7 nm, 484.2 nm, 475.7 nm or it is possible to initiate the gene dehybridization illuminating this artificial minimal cell by wavelength equal to 534.4 nm. Our quantum mechanically installed Guanine≡Cytosine-PNA-1,4-dihydroquinoxaline-1,4bis(N,N-dimethylamino)naphthalene supermolecule works in the artificial minimal cell (protocell) as molecular electronics classic OR logic function (Boolean logics OR gate).