Protonic Bioenergetics in Mitochondria and Neurons

For decades, it was not entirely clear why mitochondria develop cristae? The work employing the transmembrane‐electrostatic proton localization theory reported here has now provided a clear answer to this fundamental question. Surprisingly, the transmembrane‐electrostatically localized proton concentration at a curved mitochondrial crista tip can be significantly higher than that at the relatively flat membrane plane regions where the proton‐pumping respiratory supercomplexes are situated. The biological significance for mitochondrial cristae has now, for the first time, been elucidated at a protonic bioenergetics level: 1) The formation of cristae creates more mitochondrial inner membrane surface area and thus more protonic capacitance for transmembrane‐electrostatically localized proton energy storage; and 2) The geometric effect of a mitochondrial crista enhances the transmembrane‐electrostatically localized proton density to the crista tip where the ATP synthase can readily utilize the localized proton density to drive ATP synthesis. Accordingly, the neural resting/action potential is essentially a protonic/cationic membrane capacitor behavior. Neural resting and action potential is now much better understood as the voltage contributed by the localized protons/cations at a neural liquid‐ membrane interface. The newly formulated action potential equation provides biophysical insights for neuron electrophysiology, which may represent a complementary development to the classic Goldman‐Hodgkin‐Katz equation.