by Your cells create and constantly produce electricity that runs through your body to perform different functions. Such an example of this bioelectricity is the nerve signals that do thoughts in your brain. Others include the heart signals that control the blows of your heart, along with other signals that pull your muscles together.
As bioengine, we were interested in the epithelial cells, which consists of human skin and the outer layer of the intestinal tissue of humans. These cells cannot be able to generate bioelectricity. Textbooks state that they act primarily as an obstacle to pathogens and poisons; It is believed that epithelial cells passively do their work, e.g. B. how plastic packaging protects food from spoilage.
To our surprise, however, we found that wounded epithelial cells can spread electrical signals over dozens of cells that exist for several hours. In this newly published research, we were able to demonstrate that even epithelial cells use bioelectricity to coordinate with their neighbors if the emergency requires an injury. Understanding this unexpected turn of how the body works can lead to improved treatments for wounds.
Discovery of a new source of bioelectricity
Not laughing: Our interest in this topic started with a gut feeling. Think about how your skin heals after a scratch. Epitheline cells may look quiet and calm, but they are busy coordinating each other to extrasted damaged cells and replace them with new ones. We thought that bioelectric signals could orchestrate this, so that our intuition asked us to look for them.
Almost all providers we contacted to get the instrument we had to do to test our idea warned us not to try these experiments. Only one company agreed to the reluctance. “Your experiment will not work,” she existed. If we did the attempt and nothing is worth studying, they feared that their product would look bad.
But we did our experiments anyway – with tempting results.
We have built a layer of epithelial cells on a chip that is structured with a so -called microelectrod array – dozens of tiny electrical wires that measure, where bioelectric signals appear, how strong the signals are and how quickly they travel from stain. Then we used a laser to zap a wound in one place and look for electrical signals on another part of the cell layer.
Our intuition confirmed several hours of recording: If you are faced with the emergency, bioelectric signals must occur if epithelial cells need a quick way to communicate over large distances.
We found that wounded epithelial cells can send bioelectric signals to neighboring cells over distances more than 40 times their body length with similar tensions as neurons. The shapes of these voltage peaks, as well as those of neurons, with the exception of 1000 -slower, which indicates that it may be a more primitive form of intercellular communication over large distances.
Supply bioelectric generators with electricity
But how do epithelial cells generate bioelectricity?
We put the hypothesis that calcium ions could play a key role. Calcium ions show in the list of the most important molecules of a good biology textbook that help the cells in every good biology textbook. Since calcium ions regulate the forces that move in with cells, a function that is necessary to remove damaged cells after the injury, we set the hypothesis that calcium ions for bioelectricity should be of crucial importance.
To test our theory, we used a molecule called EDTA that ties closely to calcium ions. When we walked the epithelial cells EDTA and thus removed the calcium ions, we found that the tension tips were no longer available. This meant that calcium ions were probably necessary for epithelial cells to create the bioelectric signals that lead wound healing.
We then blocked the ion channels with which calcium and other positively charged ions can get into epithelial cells. As a result, the frequency and strength of the electrical signals that epithelial cells were produced were reduced. These results suggest that calciums can play a particularly important role in the enabling of epithelial cells to create bioelectricity, but are also important for other molecules.
Further research can help identify these other ion channels and paths that enable epithelial cells to create bioelectricity.
Improvement of wound healing
Our discovery that epithelial cells can speak electrically during a crisis without affecting their primary role as a barrier opens doors for new wounds for the treatment of wounds.
Earlier work from other researchers had shown that it is possible to improve wound healing in skin and intestinal tissue by stimulating electrically. However, these studies used electrical frequencies that are many times higher than what of course produce epithelial cells. We wonder whether the re -evaluation and refinement of optimal electrical stimulation conditions can help improve the biomedical devices for wound healing.
Below the possibility we ask ourselves whether electrically stimulating individual cells could offer even more healing potential. The researchers have currently stimulated the entire tissue electrically to treat injuries. If we could guide these electrical signals in such a way that they could specifically point out where a remedy is needed, would the stimulation of individual cells be even more effective in the treatment of wounds?
We hope that these findings could become a classic case of a science that leads to useful discoveries. While our dream has a high risk of failure, it also offers potentially high rewards.
This article will be released from the conversation, a non -profit, independent news organization that brings you facts and trustworthy analyzes to help you understand our complex world. It was written by: Sun-Min Yu, Umass at and Steve Granick, Umass at
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The authors do not work for a company or an organization that benefits from this article and have not published any relevant affiliations about their academic appointment.
