Self-Organized Bioelectricity via Collective Pump Alignment: Toward a Physical Origin of Chemiosmosis 

Ryosuke Nishide, Postdoc, Biocomplexity Group, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen

Directional ion transport across membranes maintains living systems in nonequilibrium. However, how organized ion transport could emerge in primitive cellular systems remains unclear. Here, we propose a minimal model in which ion pumps collectively align through feedback between ion transport and electrostatic interactions. Numerical simulations and theoretical analysis reveal a nonequilibrium transition from a disordered state without net transport to a pump-aligned state with sustained membrane potentials. These results provide a generic self-organizing mechanism for the emergence of bioelectricity, and a physical route toward chemiosmotic coupling in protocells.

Reference:

R. Nishide and K. Kaneko, Self-Organized Bioelectricity via Collective Pump Alignment: Toward a Physical Origin of Chemiosmosis, (2026). https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16171

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