We detected very strong coupling between the oscillating concentration of ATP and the dynamics of intracellular water during glycolysis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (1). Our results indicate that: i) dipolar relaxation of intracellular water is heterogeneous within the cell and different from dilute conditions, ii) water dipolar relaxation oscillates with glycolysis and in phase with ATP concentration, iii) this phenomenon is scale-invariant from the subcellular to the ensemble of synchronized cells and, iv) the cells that develop the oscillations have an optimal state of dipolar relaxation in their intracellular environment and these oscillations are inhibited when this state is disturbed. These results not only dispute the view of intracellular water as a liquid medium that acts passively as a biological solvent – a key consideration for using approaches from mass action kinetics and solution theory to model the intracellular environment (2) – but invoke the need to develop alternative models to explain this phenomenon. This last point will be addressed and discussed during the talk.

Luis A. Bagatolli obtained his M. Sc. (1991) and Ph. D. degree (1995) from the School of Chemical Sciences, University of Córdoba in Argentina. After a postdoctoral research at Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamic, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, USA, and a brief stay in Argentina, he joined MEMPHYS- Center for Biomembrane Physics at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU), Odense, Denmark. At present, he is an associated staff at MEMPHYS- Center for Biomembrane Physics at SDU and a Prometeo researcher (SENESCYT) at Yachay EP and Yachay tech. His current research interests are biophysical aspects of biological membranes, effects of molecular crowding in cells and development and applications of biophotonic -related techniques to biological systems (fluorescence spectroscopy, multiphoton excitation microscopy). He has authored more than 115 articles (including review articles, book chapters) and two books on topics such as physical properties of model and biological membranes, effects of crowding on metabolic process in cells and tissue imaging (skin, circulatory system).