Electromagnetism & Morphogenesis, by evolution, or design?
1. One of the widely debated key questions in evolutionary biology is if traditional claims based on genetic mutations, natural selection, drift, and gene flow explain sufficiently the creation and maintenance of organismal form, complex biological systems, from cellular to body, guiding morphogenesis.
2. Recent groundbreaking scientific discoveries are demonstrating that one key issue, cell migration (galvanotropism, galvanotaxis or electrotaxis) is not due to change in allele frequencies in genes, but endogenous electric currents and fields, generated by molecules, program the formation of extracellular molecular gradients which play an instructive role, guiding and generating cues of the migratory trajectory of cells to their end destination in the body during development. Complex pattern formation requires mechanisms to coordinate individual cell behavior towards the anatomical needs of the organism. Alongside the well-studied biochemical and genetic signals functions an important and powerful system of bioelectrical communication. All cells, not just excitable nerve, and muscle utilize ion channels and pumps to drive standing gradients of ion content and transmembrane resting potential. Bioelectrical properties are key determinants of cell migration, differentiation, and proliferation. Spatio-temporal gradients of transmembrane voltage potentials are instructive cues that encode positional information and organ identity, and thus regulates the creation and maintenance of large-scale shape. In a variety of model systems, it is now clear that bioelectric pre patterns function during embryonic development, organ regeneration, and cancer suppression."
3. Furthermore, the collective oscillations of calcium Ca2+ ions on the surface of cell membranes also contribute to generating endogenous electromagnetic fields and there is information encoded both in the amplitude modulation and in the frequency modulation of Ca2+ oscillations. Calcium (Ca2+) oscillations are ubiquitous signals present in all cells providing efficient means to transmit intracellular biological information. They regulate a wide spectrum of cellular processes, including fertilization, proliferation, differentiation, muscle contraction, learning, and cell death. Information encoded in Calcium (Ca2+) oscillations generate a huge spatial and temporal diversity of signals since a Ca2+ response can exhibit infinite patterns. Through an intricate concert of action between several Ca2+ transporters in the cell, the cytosolic Ca2+ concentration can start to oscillate, much like a radio signal. Specific information can thereby be efficiently encoded in the signal and transmitted through the cell without harming the cell itself. These endogenous electric fields generate three-dimensional coordination systems for embryo development. The genome is tightly linked to bioelectric signaling, via ion channel proteins that shape the gradients, downstream genes whose transcription is regulated by voltage, and transduction machinery that converts changes in bioelectric state to second-messenger cascades. The data clearly indicates that bioelectric signaling is an autonomous layer of control not reducible to a biochemical or genetic account of cell state.
4. Programming, the generation of instructions for complex pattern formation, coordination, communication, the encoding of information, orchestration of actions, the generation of informational radio signals, it's encoding, transmission, and decoding are all things exclusively done by intelligent minds with preset goals.
5. All those things are observed during morphogenesis and the development of complex organismal architecture. Therefore, the source of the biological development of complex multicellular organisms is not explained by genetic variations and selection but is correctly explained by intelligent setup and implementation.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2982-electromagnetism-morphogenesis
Image:
Structural evidence for electromagnetic resonance in plant morphogenesis
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303264712000329
.It’s being discovered that electromagnetic (EM) fields have a lot of to do with the creation and maintenance of form in biological systems and that they work in all scales, from cellular to body, guiding morphogenesis. This is consistent with an electromagnetic mind theory that also equates mind to the sense of being alive, as those fields operate also at unicellular scales.
This last is important by principle, as it provides us with a powerful explanatory tool for the intelligence and memory capabilities of unicellular entities or the non-nervous biological systems including plants.[1]
" Overall, the structural evidence and physical uniqueness of EM mode patterns indicate developing plant organs can support EM resonances, whereby the electric and magnetic field components guide symmetry-breaking and therefore resemble the first pattern to emerge in primordia. Rich in positional information, the EM resonant mode represents a possible physical manifestation of the morphogenetic field."
It is experimentally proven that in the case of the flowers of the plants those fields extend beyond the boundaries of them [4] and are used by pollinators as a detection/informative method [5].
It is a growing body of evidence that electric currents guide the migration of cells, for example, Cao et al. [6] reported electric field dependent migration of neuroblasts.
Endogenous electric currents might guide rostral migration of neuroblasts
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/embor.2012.215
Mechanisms that guide directional migration of neuroblasts ( A neuroblast or primitive nerve cell[1] is a postmitotic cell that does not divide further,[2] and which will develop into a neuron after a migration phase.[3] Neuroblasts differentiate from radial glial cells and are committed to becoming neurons.[4] ) from the subventricular zone (SVZ) ( The subventricular zone (SVZ) is a region situated on the outside wall of each lateral ventricle of the vertebrate brain.[2] ) are not well understood. We report here that endogenous ( Endogenous substances and processes are those that originate from within a system such as an organism, tissue, or cell. ) electric currents serve as a guidance cue for neuroblast migration. We identify the existence of naturally occurring electric currents (1.5±0.6 μA/cm2, average field strength of ∼3 mV/mm) along the rostral migration path ( The rostral migratory stream (RMS) is a specialized migratory route found in the brain of some animals along which neuronal precursors that originated in the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the brain migrate to reach the main olfactory bulb (OB) in adult mouse brain.
This pathway spans more than several millimeters or even more.Defects in neuronal migration might lead to important diseases, including lissencephaly, epilepsy and mental retardation. Genetic and molecular analyses have suggested several molecules that might guide neuronal migration. These molecules form extracellular molecular gradients and participate in guiding the rostral migration. The beating cilia of ependymal cells generates a directional flow of cerebrospinal fluid, which helps to build slit gradients that contribute to the rostral migration of neuroblasts. Another potential candidate cue for guiding long-distance migration is the electric field (EF). Directional fluxes of ions generate electrical potential gradients, endogenous EFs, which have been measured in the embryo and at wounds. Many types of cells respond to small EFs by directional polarization, growth and migration (galvanotropism, galvanotaxis or electrotaxis)
The disruption of the spatial gradient of the transmembrane potential (Vmem) of the cells lining the neural tube diminishes or eliminates the expression of early brain markers, and causes also an anatomical mispatterning of the brain [8]. Electric fields are not only capable of guide cells to everywhere and alter the final form but also are capable to reverse morphogenesis [9]:
" We show that an external electric field above a critical amplitude can halt and even reverse the course of morphogenesis in whole-body Hydra regeneration on demand. The reversal trajectory maintains the integrity of the tissue and its regeneration capability. We further show that these reversal dynamics are induced by enhanced electrical excitations of the tissue. It demonstrates that electrical processes play an instructive role in morphogenesis to a level that can direct developmental trajectories, commonly thought to be forward-driven programmed biochemical processes."
But as an important result in this experiment is that also has confirmed the importance of the frequency of the electric field and the involvement of calcium activity:
" These data demonstrate the existence of a frequency cutoff around 1 kHz, above which the elevated Ca2+ activity is reduced, and morphogenesis is restored from its suspended state. This upper-frequency cutoff is not a sharp cutoff at precisely 1 kHz. Nevertheless, further experiments demonstrate that at frequencies higher than ∼1 kHz, the regeneration process is insensitive to the external electric field."
This evidences that the phenomenon is an electrodynamic dependent one. Magnetic fields are also always present, for example in [10] there has been detected endogenous magnetic fields arising from the ion transport/movement through the cell membrane.
Measuring Cellular Ion Transport by Magnetoencephalography
https://emmind.net/openpapers_repos/Endogenous_Fields-Mind/General/EM_Cancer/2020_Measuring_Cellular_Ion_Transport_by_Magnetoencephalography.pdf
In [11] Authors develop an ion channel-based model that describes multicellular states on the basis of Spatio-temporal patterns of electrical potentials in aggregates of non-excitable cells. And try to give answers to various questions that include how can a single-cell contribute to the control of multicellular ensembles based on the Spatio-temporal pattern of electrical potentials or how can oscillatory patterns arise from the single-cell bioelectrical dynamics.
The relationship of ion oscillations with morphogenesis is also exemplified in [12] where there is observed the dynamic changes of bioelectric currents in developing chicken embryos:
" Before feather bud elongation, EF endogenous to dorsal skin was relatively homogenous and exhibited inward directionality. At the onset of elongation, outward electric current emerged at the anterior side of each feather bud, implying a heterogenization of the EF into multiple smaller electric circuits. Tissue-wide long-range Ca 2+ oscillations were observed in bud mesenchyme. Dampening these oscillations or the introduction of exogenous oscillations altered feather morphology. Feather mesenchymal cell movement changes direction markedly when voltage-gated Ca 2+ channels (VGCCs) or gap junctions were inhibited."
It must be taken in consideration that the collective oscillations of Ca2+ ions can generate endogenous electromagnetic fields and that there are serious indications that there is information encoded both in the amplitude modulation and in the frequency modulation of Ca2+ oscillations [13]:
Frequency decoding of calcium oscillations
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2448-howintracellular-calcium-signaling-gradient-and-its-role-as-a-universal-intracellular-regulator-points-to-design#7709
Calcium (Ca2+) oscillations are ubiquitous signals present in all cells that provide efficient means to transmit intracellular biological information. Either spontaneously or upon receptor-ligand binding, the otherwise stable cytosolic Ca2+ concentration starts to oscillate. The resulting specific oscillatory pattern is interpreted by intracellular downstream effectors that subsequently activate different cellular processes. This signal transduction can occur through frequency modulation (FM) or amplitude modulation (AM), much similar to a radio signal. The decoding of the oscillatory signal is typically performed by enzymes with multiple Ca2+ binding residues that diversely can regulate its total phosphorylation, thereby activating cellular program.
" Decoding is used by the cell to interpret the information carried by the Ca2 + oscillation. This information deciphering occurs when one or several intracellular molecules sense the signal and change their activities accordingly. The process is similar to electromagnetic radiation being received by an antenna on a radio and translated into sound. Mathematical modeling of a generic Ca2 + sensitive protein has shown that it is possible to decode Ca2 + oscillations on the basis of the frequency itself, the duration of the single transients, or the amplitude."
Wells [14] focused on plasma membrane patterns that generate endogenous electric fields that can provide three-dimensional coordination systems for embryo development. In a review by Funk [15] he distinguishes two aspects of this ambit: low magnitude membrane potentials and related electric fields (bioelectricity), and cell migration under the guiding cue of electric fields. He described for example how in osteoblasts, the directional information of electric fields is captured by charged transporters on the cell membrane and transferred into signaling mechanisms that modulate the cytoskeletal and motor proteins, resulting in a persistent directional migration along an electric field guiding cue.
Among others, electric fields activate a number of channels and that variations in the extracellular and intracellular environment as well as the distribution of channels on the membrane contribute to the galvanotactic response [16]. Michael Levin in [17] mentioned:
" The genome is tightly linked to bioelectric signaling, via ion channel proteins that shape the gradients, downstream genes whose transcription is regulated by voltage, and transduction machinery that converts changes in bioelectric state to second-messenger cascades. However, the data clearly indicate that bioelectric signaling is an autonomous layer of control not reducible to a biochemical or genetic account of cell state."
Also Michael Levin, and Maria Lobikin, realized a review [18] where are well described some of the issues related to endogenous bioelectric currents, just as they wrote in the abstract:
" Complex pattern formation requires mechanisms to coordinate individual cell behavior towards the anatomical needs of the host organism. Alongside the well-studied biochemical and genetic signals functions an important and powerful system of bioelectrical communication. All cells, not just excitable nerve and muscle, utilize ion channels and pumps to drive standing gradients of ion content and transmembrane resting potential. In this chapter, we discuss the data that show that these bioelectrical properties are key determinants of cell migration, differentiation, and proliferation. We also highlight the evidence for spatio-temporal gradients of transmembrane voltage potential as an instructive cue that encodes positional information and organ identity, and thus regulates the creation and maintenance of large-scale shape. In a variety of model systems, it is now clear that bioelectric pre patterns function during embryonic development, organ regeneration, and cancer suppression."
Electric fields, magnetic fields and electromagnetic fields can determine how cells move and adhere to surfaces; how the migration of multiple cells are coordinated and regulated; how cells interact with neighboring cells, and also be associated to changes in their microenvironment [19].
Moreover, as pointed in the subtitle of this section internal organelles and structures of cells may be also disposed following what the internally generated fields dictate, in this sense, for example, in [20] it has been found that intracellular pH and membrane potential changes simulate bioelectrical changes occurring naturally and leading to the cytoskeletal modifications observed during differentiation of the follicle-cell epithelium. Therefore, gradual modifications of electrochemical signals can serve as physiological means to regulate cell and tissue architecture by modifying cytoskeletal patterns. More generally in [21] are exposed the latest findings on the electroconductive properties of cellular internal components, and of course, when it speak about electrical conduction it can also speak about sensitivity to external and internal electromagnetic fields.
References:
1. EMMIND › Endogenous Fields & Mind › Endogenous Electromagnetic Fields › Electromagnetic Mind - Other supporting › Plants and Unicellular consciousness
2. Pietak, A. (2015). Electromagnetic resonance and morphogenesis. Fields of the Cell, 1st ed.; Fels, D., Cifra, M., Scholkmann, F., Eds, 303-320.
3. Pietak, A. M. (2012). Structural evidence for electromagnetic resonance in plant morphogenesis. BioSystems, 109(3), 367-380.
4. Shalatonin, V. (2007, September). A study of the endogenous electromagnetic field into the space around the flower plants. In 2007 Joint 32nd International Conference on Infrared and Millimeter Waves and the 15th International Conference on Terahertz Electronics (pp. 293-294). IEEE.
5. Clarke, D., Morley, E., & Robert, D. (2017). The bee, the flower, and the electric field: electric ecology and aerial electroreception. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 203(9), 737-748.
6. Cao, L., Wei, D., Reid, B., Zhao, S., Pu, J., Pan, T., ... & Zhao, M. (2013). Endogenous electric currents might guide rostral migration of neuroblasts. EMBO reports, 14(2), 184-190.
7. Tseng, A., & Levin, M. (2013). Cracking the bioelectric code: probing endogenous ionic controls of pattern formation. Communicative & Integrative Biology, 6(1), 13192-200.
8. Pai, V. P., Lemire, J. M., Paré, J. F., Lin, G., Chen, Y., & Levin, M. (2015). Endogenous gradients of resting potential instructively pattern embryonic neural tissue via notch signaling and regulation of proliferation. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(10), 4366-4385.
9. Braun, E., & Ori, H. (2019). Electric-induced reversal of morphogenesis in Hydra. Biophysical Journal, 117(8 ), 1514-1523.
10. Measuring Cellular Ion Transport by Magnetoencephalography.
11. Cervera, J., Pai, V. P., Levin, M., & Mafe, S. (2019). From non-excitable single-cell to multicellular bioelectrical states supported by ion channels and gap junction proteins: electrical potentials as distributed controllers. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 149, 39-53.
12. Li, A., Cho, J. H., Reid, B., Tseng, C. C., He, L., Tan, P., ... & Zhou, Y. (2018). Calcium oscillations coordinate feather mesenchymal cell movement by SHH dependent modulation of gap junction networks. Nature communications, 9(1), 1-15.
13. Smedler, E., & Uhlén, P. (2014). Frequency decoding of calcium oscillations. Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta (BBA)-General Subjects, 1840(3), 964-969.
14. Wells, J. (2014). Membrane patterns carry ontogenetic information that is specified independently of DNA. Biophysical Journal, 106(2), 596a.
15. Funk, R. H. (2015). Endogenous electric fields as guiding cue for cell migration. Frontiers in physiology, 6, 143.
16. Iwasa, S. N., Babona-Pilipos, R., & Morshead, C. M. (2017). Environmental factors that influence stem cell migration: an “electric field”. Stem cells international, 2017.
17. Levin, M. (2014). Endogenous bioelectrical networks store non‐genetic patterning information during development and regeneration. The Journal of physiology, 592(11), 2295-2305.
18. Lobikin, M., & Levin, M. (2015). Endogenous bioelectric cues as morphogenetic signals in vivo. Fields of the Cell,(Fels, D., Cifra, M. & Scholkmann, F., eds.), 279-298.
19. Ross, C. L. (2017). The use of electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic field for directed cell migration and adhesion in regenerative medicine. Biotechnology Progress, 33(1), 5-16
20. Weiß, I., & Bohrmann, J. (2019). Electrochemical gradients are involved in regulating cytoskeletal patterns during epithelial morphogenesis in the Drosophila ovary. BMC developmental biology, 19(1), 22.
21. Tuszynski, J. A. (2019). The Bioelectric Circuitry of the Cell. In Brain and Human Body Modeling (pp. 195-208). Springer, Cham.
1. One of the widely debated key questions in evolutionary biology is if traditional claims based on genetic mutations, natural selection, drift, and gene flow explain sufficiently the creation and maintenance of organismal form, complex biological systems, from cellular to body, guiding morphogenesis.
2. Recent groundbreaking scientific discoveries are demonstrating that one key issue, cell migration (galvanotropism, galvanotaxis or electrotaxis) is not due to change in allele frequencies in genes, but endogenous electric currents and fields, generated by molecules, program the formation of extracellular molecular gradients which play an instructive role, guiding and generating cues of the migratory trajectory of cells to their end destination in the body during development. Complex pattern formation requires mechanisms to coordinate individual cell behavior towards the anatomical needs of the organism. Alongside the well-studied biochemical and genetic signals functions an important and powerful system of bioelectrical communication. All cells, not just excitable nerve, and muscle utilize ion channels and pumps to drive standing gradients of ion content and transmembrane resting potential. Bioelectrical properties are key determinants of cell migration, differentiation, and proliferation. Spatio-temporal gradients of transmembrane voltage potentials are instructive cues that encode positional information and organ identity, and thus regulates the creation and maintenance of large-scale shape. In a variety of model systems, it is now clear that bioelectric pre patterns function during embryonic development, organ regeneration, and cancer suppression."
3. Furthermore, the collective oscillations of calcium Ca2+ ions on the surface of cell membranes also contribute to generating endogenous electromagnetic fields and there is information encoded both in the amplitude modulation and in the frequency modulation of Ca2+ oscillations. Calcium (Ca2+) oscillations are ubiquitous signals present in all cells providing efficient means to transmit intracellular biological information. They regulate a wide spectrum of cellular processes, including fertilization, proliferation, differentiation, muscle contraction, learning, and cell death. Information encoded in Calcium (Ca2+) oscillations generate a huge spatial and temporal diversity of signals since a Ca2+ response can exhibit infinite patterns. Through an intricate concert of action between several Ca2+ transporters in the cell, the cytosolic Ca2+ concentration can start to oscillate, much like a radio signal. Specific information can thereby be efficiently encoded in the signal and transmitted through the cell without harming the cell itself. These endogenous electric fields generate three-dimensional coordination systems for embryo development. The genome is tightly linked to bioelectric signaling, via ion channel proteins that shape the gradients, downstream genes whose transcription is regulated by voltage, and transduction machinery that converts changes in bioelectric state to second-messenger cascades. The data clearly indicates that bioelectric signaling is an autonomous layer of control not reducible to a biochemical or genetic account of cell state.
4. Programming, the generation of instructions for complex pattern formation, coordination, communication, the encoding of information, orchestration of actions, the generation of informational radio signals, it's encoding, transmission, and decoding are all things exclusively done by intelligent minds with preset goals.
5. All those things are observed during morphogenesis and the development of complex organismal architecture. Therefore, the source of the biological development of complex multicellular organisms is not explained by genetic variations and selection but is correctly explained by intelligent setup and implementation.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2982-electromagnetism-morphogenesis
Image:
Structural evidence for electromagnetic resonance in plant morphogenesis
https://sci-hub.tw/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303264712000329
.It’s being discovered that electromagnetic (EM) fields have a lot of to do with the creation and maintenance of form in biological systems and that they work in all scales, from cellular to body, guiding morphogenesis. This is consistent with an electromagnetic mind theory that also equates mind to the sense of being alive, as those fields operate also at unicellular scales.
This last is important by principle, as it provides us with a powerful explanatory tool for the intelligence and memory capabilities of unicellular entities or the non-nervous biological systems including plants.[1]
" Overall, the structural evidence and physical uniqueness of EM mode patterns indicate developing plant organs can support EM resonances, whereby the electric and magnetic field components guide symmetry-breaking and therefore resemble the first pattern to emerge in primordia. Rich in positional information, the EM resonant mode represents a possible physical manifestation of the morphogenetic field."
It is experimentally proven that in the case of the flowers of the plants those fields extend beyond the boundaries of them [4] and are used by pollinators as a detection/informative method [5].
It is a growing body of evidence that electric currents guide the migration of cells, for example, Cao et al. [6] reported electric field dependent migration of neuroblasts.
Endogenous electric currents might guide rostral migration of neuroblasts
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/embor.2012.215
Mechanisms that guide directional migration of neuroblasts ( A neuroblast or primitive nerve cell[1] is a postmitotic cell that does not divide further,[2] and which will develop into a neuron after a migration phase.[3] Neuroblasts differentiate from radial glial cells and are committed to becoming neurons.[4] ) from the subventricular zone (SVZ) ( The subventricular zone (SVZ) is a region situated on the outside wall of each lateral ventricle of the vertebrate brain.[2] ) are not well understood. We report here that endogenous ( Endogenous substances and processes are those that originate from within a system such as an organism, tissue, or cell. ) electric currents serve as a guidance cue for neuroblast migration. We identify the existence of naturally occurring electric currents (1.5±0.6 μA/cm2, average field strength of ∼3 mV/mm) along the rostral migration path ( The rostral migratory stream (RMS) is a specialized migratory route found in the brain of some animals along which neuronal precursors that originated in the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the brain migrate to reach the main olfactory bulb (OB) in adult mouse brain.
This pathway spans more than several millimeters or even more.Defects in neuronal migration might lead to important diseases, including lissencephaly, epilepsy and mental retardation. Genetic and molecular analyses have suggested several molecules that might guide neuronal migration. These molecules form extracellular molecular gradients and participate in guiding the rostral migration. The beating cilia of ependymal cells generates a directional flow of cerebrospinal fluid, which helps to build slit gradients that contribute to the rostral migration of neuroblasts. Another potential candidate cue for guiding long-distance migration is the electric field (EF). Directional fluxes of ions generate electrical potential gradients, endogenous EFs, which have been measured in the embryo and at wounds. Many types of cells respond to small EFs by directional polarization, growth and migration (galvanotropism, galvanotaxis or electrotaxis)
The disruption of the spatial gradient of the transmembrane potential (Vmem) of the cells lining the neural tube diminishes or eliminates the expression of early brain markers, and causes also an anatomical mispatterning of the brain [8]. Electric fields are not only capable of guide cells to everywhere and alter the final form but also are capable to reverse morphogenesis [9]:
" We show that an external electric field above a critical amplitude can halt and even reverse the course of morphogenesis in whole-body Hydra regeneration on demand. The reversal trajectory maintains the integrity of the tissue and its regeneration capability. We further show that these reversal dynamics are induced by enhanced electrical excitations of the tissue. It demonstrates that electrical processes play an instructive role in morphogenesis to a level that can direct developmental trajectories, commonly thought to be forward-driven programmed biochemical processes."
But as an important result in this experiment is that also has confirmed the importance of the frequency of the electric field and the involvement of calcium activity:
" These data demonstrate the existence of a frequency cutoff around 1 kHz, above which the elevated Ca2+ activity is reduced, and morphogenesis is restored from its suspended state. This upper-frequency cutoff is not a sharp cutoff at precisely 1 kHz. Nevertheless, further experiments demonstrate that at frequencies higher than ∼1 kHz, the regeneration process is insensitive to the external electric field."
This evidences that the phenomenon is an electrodynamic dependent one. Magnetic fields are also always present, for example in [10] there has been detected endogenous magnetic fields arising from the ion transport/movement through the cell membrane.
Measuring Cellular Ion Transport by Magnetoencephalography
https://emmind.net/openpapers_repos/Endogenous_Fields-Mind/General/EM_Cancer/2020_Measuring_Cellular_Ion_Transport_by_Magnetoencephalography.pdf
In [11] Authors develop an ion channel-based model that describes multicellular states on the basis of Spatio-temporal patterns of electrical potentials in aggregates of non-excitable cells. And try to give answers to various questions that include how can a single-cell contribute to the control of multicellular ensembles based on the Spatio-temporal pattern of electrical potentials or how can oscillatory patterns arise from the single-cell bioelectrical dynamics.
The relationship of ion oscillations with morphogenesis is also exemplified in [12] where there is observed the dynamic changes of bioelectric currents in developing chicken embryos:
" Before feather bud elongation, EF endogenous to dorsal skin was relatively homogenous and exhibited inward directionality. At the onset of elongation, outward electric current emerged at the anterior side of each feather bud, implying a heterogenization of the EF into multiple smaller electric circuits. Tissue-wide long-range Ca 2+ oscillations were observed in bud mesenchyme. Dampening these oscillations or the introduction of exogenous oscillations altered feather morphology. Feather mesenchymal cell movement changes direction markedly when voltage-gated Ca 2+ channels (VGCCs) or gap junctions were inhibited."
It must be taken in consideration that the collective oscillations of Ca2+ ions can generate endogenous electromagnetic fields and that there are serious indications that there is information encoded both in the amplitude modulation and in the frequency modulation of Ca2+ oscillations [13]:
Frequency decoding of calcium oscillations
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2448-howintracellular-calcium-signaling-gradient-and-its-role-as-a-universal-intracellular-regulator-points-to-design#7709
Calcium (Ca2+) oscillations are ubiquitous signals present in all cells that provide efficient means to transmit intracellular biological information. Either spontaneously or upon receptor-ligand binding, the otherwise stable cytosolic Ca2+ concentration starts to oscillate. The resulting specific oscillatory pattern is interpreted by intracellular downstream effectors that subsequently activate different cellular processes. This signal transduction can occur through frequency modulation (FM) or amplitude modulation (AM), much similar to a radio signal. The decoding of the oscillatory signal is typically performed by enzymes with multiple Ca2+ binding residues that diversely can regulate its total phosphorylation, thereby activating cellular program.
" Decoding is used by the cell to interpret the information carried by the Ca2 + oscillation. This information deciphering occurs when one or several intracellular molecules sense the signal and change their activities accordingly. The process is similar to electromagnetic radiation being received by an antenna on a radio and translated into sound. Mathematical modeling of a generic Ca2 + sensitive protein has shown that it is possible to decode Ca2 + oscillations on the basis of the frequency itself, the duration of the single transients, or the amplitude."
Wells [14] focused on plasma membrane patterns that generate endogenous electric fields that can provide three-dimensional coordination systems for embryo development. In a review by Funk [15] he distinguishes two aspects of this ambit: low magnitude membrane potentials and related electric fields (bioelectricity), and cell migration under the guiding cue of electric fields. He described for example how in osteoblasts, the directional information of electric fields is captured by charged transporters on the cell membrane and transferred into signaling mechanisms that modulate the cytoskeletal and motor proteins, resulting in a persistent directional migration along an electric field guiding cue.
Among others, electric fields activate a number of channels and that variations in the extracellular and intracellular environment as well as the distribution of channels on the membrane contribute to the galvanotactic response [16]. Michael Levin in [17] mentioned:
" The genome is tightly linked to bioelectric signaling, via ion channel proteins that shape the gradients, downstream genes whose transcription is regulated by voltage, and transduction machinery that converts changes in bioelectric state to second-messenger cascades. However, the data clearly indicate that bioelectric signaling is an autonomous layer of control not reducible to a biochemical or genetic account of cell state."
Also Michael Levin, and Maria Lobikin, realized a review [18] where are well described some of the issues related to endogenous bioelectric currents, just as they wrote in the abstract:
" Complex pattern formation requires mechanisms to coordinate individual cell behavior towards the anatomical needs of the host organism. Alongside the well-studied biochemical and genetic signals functions an important and powerful system of bioelectrical communication. All cells, not just excitable nerve and muscle, utilize ion channels and pumps to drive standing gradients of ion content and transmembrane resting potential. In this chapter, we discuss the data that show that these bioelectrical properties are key determinants of cell migration, differentiation, and proliferation. We also highlight the evidence for spatio-temporal gradients of transmembrane voltage potential as an instructive cue that encodes positional information and organ identity, and thus regulates the creation and maintenance of large-scale shape. In a variety of model systems, it is now clear that bioelectric pre patterns function during embryonic development, organ regeneration, and cancer suppression."
Electric fields, magnetic fields and electromagnetic fields can determine how cells move and adhere to surfaces; how the migration of multiple cells are coordinated and regulated; how cells interact with neighboring cells, and also be associated to changes in their microenvironment [19].
Moreover, as pointed in the subtitle of this section internal organelles and structures of cells may be also disposed following what the internally generated fields dictate, in this sense, for example, in [20] it has been found that intracellular pH and membrane potential changes simulate bioelectrical changes occurring naturally and leading to the cytoskeletal modifications observed during differentiation of the follicle-cell epithelium. Therefore, gradual modifications of electrochemical signals can serve as physiological means to regulate cell and tissue architecture by modifying cytoskeletal patterns. More generally in [21] are exposed the latest findings on the electroconductive properties of cellular internal components, and of course, when it speak about electrical conduction it can also speak about sensitivity to external and internal electromagnetic fields.
References:
1. EMMIND › Endogenous Fields & Mind › Endogenous Electromagnetic Fields › Electromagnetic Mind - Other supporting › Plants and Unicellular consciousness
2. Pietak, A. (2015). Electromagnetic resonance and morphogenesis. Fields of the Cell, 1st ed.; Fels, D., Cifra, M., Scholkmann, F., Eds, 303-320.
3. Pietak, A. M. (2012). Structural evidence for electromagnetic resonance in plant morphogenesis. BioSystems, 109(3), 367-380.
4. Shalatonin, V. (2007, September). A study of the endogenous electromagnetic field into the space around the flower plants. In 2007 Joint 32nd International Conference on Infrared and Millimeter Waves and the 15th International Conference on Terahertz Electronics (pp. 293-294). IEEE.
5. Clarke, D., Morley, E., & Robert, D. (2017). The bee, the flower, and the electric field: electric ecology and aerial electroreception. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 203(9), 737-748.
6. Cao, L., Wei, D., Reid, B., Zhao, S., Pu, J., Pan, T., ... & Zhao, M. (2013). Endogenous electric currents might guide rostral migration of neuroblasts. EMBO reports, 14(2), 184-190.
7. Tseng, A., & Levin, M. (2013). Cracking the bioelectric code: probing endogenous ionic controls of pattern formation. Communicative & Integrative Biology, 6(1), 13192-200.
8. Pai, V. P., Lemire, J. M., Paré, J. F., Lin, G., Chen, Y., & Levin, M. (2015). Endogenous gradients of resting potential instructively pattern embryonic neural tissue via notch signaling and regulation of proliferation. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(10), 4366-4385.
9. Braun, E., & Ori, H. (2019). Electric-induced reversal of morphogenesis in Hydra. Biophysical Journal, 117(8 ), 1514-1523.
10. Measuring Cellular Ion Transport by Magnetoencephalography.
11. Cervera, J., Pai, V. P., Levin, M., & Mafe, S. (2019). From non-excitable single-cell to multicellular bioelectrical states supported by ion channels and gap junction proteins: electrical potentials as distributed controllers. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 149, 39-53.
12. Li, A., Cho, J. H., Reid, B., Tseng, C. C., He, L., Tan, P., ... & Zhou, Y. (2018). Calcium oscillations coordinate feather mesenchymal cell movement by SHH dependent modulation of gap junction networks. Nature communications, 9(1), 1-15.
13. Smedler, E., & Uhlén, P. (2014). Frequency decoding of calcium oscillations. Biochimica Et Biophysica Acta (BBA)-General Subjects, 1840(3), 964-969.
14. Wells, J. (2014). Membrane patterns carry ontogenetic information that is specified independently of DNA. Biophysical Journal, 106(2), 596a.
15. Funk, R. H. (2015). Endogenous electric fields as guiding cue for cell migration. Frontiers in physiology, 6, 143.
16. Iwasa, S. N., Babona-Pilipos, R., & Morshead, C. M. (2017). Environmental factors that influence stem cell migration: an “electric field”. Stem cells international, 2017.
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Last edited by Admin on Fri Jul 17, 2020 8:29 am; edited 2 times in total
