Is Proton motive force mediated bacterial flagellation classically feasible? ​

In the 1970s Professor Peter Mitchel won the Nobel Prize for proton chemiosmosis. In the same decade Michael D Manson elucidated that an analogous proton motive force propelled flagella rotations. Bacterial flagella rotate at exceptionally high speeds and require a large number of protons per gyration. This is achieved even at neutral/alkaline pHs. We evaluated the feasibility of flagella proton-mediated propulsion.It can be shown that a single flagellum from E. coli can recruit from 100,000 to over 400,000 protons per second. An E. coli bacterium measures 1µm3. However at a pH of 8.8, which falls within the pH range of optimal E.coli locomotion, there is only one proton per 1µm3. E. coli can have up to 10 flagella with vast numbers of bacteria exist within an inoculum.One must conclude that under a classical analysis the proton-propelled flagella motion by stochastic effusion is not feasible. This suggests that the process relies on the Nuclear Quantum Effects (NQE) of protons and water. Under this paradigm small nuclei, of which the proton is the smallest, exhibit quantum properties. The do not exist in discrete locations but rather there are a “sea” of delocalised protons transfixed in a state of coherence by hydrogen bonding analogous to the delocalised electrons of the electrons of the benzene ring. Our findings suggest that the most rudimentary organisms exploited quantum mechanics billions of years before the conceptual founders Heisenberg, Born, Bohr and De Broglie.