Ehsani, Sepehr (2024) Examining Part–Part Interactions toward Improving Mechanistic Explanations in Cell Biology. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Mechanistic explanations are a mainstay of causal accounts in cell biology. Such explanations are underpinned in large part by a network of part–part interactions, e.g. protein–protein or protein–nucleic-acid interactions. These interactions have traditionally either been discovered in a focused, experiment-by-experiment manner or via so-called 'hypothesis-free' large-scale interactome studies, which require subsequent verifications of the individual interactions of interest. In all such studies, regardless of the scale and mode of experimentation, there is a tacit assumption that an 'interaction' is constituted simply by the proximity between and/or enzymatic changes imparted on the two parts (of note, multipart interactions can still be thought of as being composed of a number of two-part interactions). However, very few substantive theoretical accounts of what may actually constitute an 'interaction' in the context of the cell have been put forth. Starting with the example of a mechanistic explanation of an important cellular phenomenon (the mitochondrial respiratory chain), I develop a two-part account of protein–protein interactions, with implications for other types of cellular part–part interactions. First, I map out four aspects relevant to the sequence of events taking place in protein–protein interactions, and, second, propose (i) interaction-enabling properties of proteins and (ii) interaction-enabling properties of the proteins' environment as elements that could be explained by relevant lawlike generalizations. These generalization-based explanations could answer contrastive why-this-and-not-that types of questions pertaining to different aspects of a protein–protein interaction of interest in a mechanistic explanation.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Biological Generalizations; Interactions; Mechanistic Explanation; Philosophy of Cell Biology; Scientific Explanation; Scientific Laws | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Laws of Nature |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Sepehr Ehsani | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 27 Mar 2024 11:32 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 27 Mar 2024 11:32 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 23230 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Biology General Issues > Explanation General Issues > Laws of Nature |
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| Date: | 26 March 2024 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/23230 |
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