Even if the Morse code usage has almost disappeared, it was a very efficient communication protocol. Now, researchers from several universities and drug companies in the U. K. have discovered that our cells are also using Morse-like signals to switch genes on and off. In this news release, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) writes that this discovery may have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry. Better and more efficient drugs would only deliver the signals to our cells that will activate a desired behavior. Sounds like science fiction? Read more.
This research is featured as the cover story of the January 2005 issue of Business, the quarterly magazine of the BBSRC. Here is a link to this full issue (PDF format, 32 pages, 1.08 MB). The article about "A Morse code in cells?" appears on pages 16 and 17.
Below is a picture and its legend as they appear in the magazine (Credit: BBSRC)
Composite picture showing a series of timelapse images of a neuroblastoma cell (SK-N-AS) stimulated with TNFalpha continuously for 360 minutes. The images show that in the cell, fluorescent RelA (an NF-kappaB protein) moves into and out of the nucleus three times. Individual pictures of the cell were superimposed over a graph (subsequently removed) that quantified the extent to which the fluorescent protein is localised in the nucleus versus the cytoplasm at different times after stimulation.
Now, let's move to the essential details of the BBSRC news release.
Morse code is a simple, effective and clear method of communication and now scientists believe that cells in our body may also be using patterns of signals to switch genes on and off. The discovery may have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry as the signalling molecules that are targeted by drugs may have more than one purpose. The number of 'dots and dashes’ being used by each signal could have different purposes, all of which could be modified by a drug.
Sex can no longer be the germ, the seed of fiction. Sex is an episode, most properly conveyed in an episodic manner, quickly, often ironically. It is a bursting forth of only one of the cells in the body of the omnipotent “I,” the one who hopes by concentration of tone and voice to utter the sound of reality.
—Elizabeth Hardwick (b. 1916)
The researchers, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and working at the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester and the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital, in collaboration with scientists at AstraZeneca and Pfizer, have studied transcription factors, the signalling molecules inside cells that activate or deactivate genes. They found that the strength of the signal is less important than the dynamic frequency pattern that is used.
The researchers focused on the response of a transcription factor involved in controlling the crucial processes of cell division and cell death. They found that the dynamics of the signalling molecule resemble the changes in calcium levels that encode other messages in cells. The results suggest how common signalling molecules could convey different messages through different frequencies.
Below is a series of pictures showing the results of an experiment which lasted several hours (Credit: BBSRC)
Neuroblastoma (SK-N-AS) cells, expressing EGFP (green) and RelA-Ds-Red (red), showing repeated movements of RelA-DsRed (RelA/p65 is an NF-êB subunit) between the cytoplasm and nucleus following treatment of the cells with TNFá (Time = minutes)
And here is the conclusion of Professor Julia Goodfellow, BBSRC Chief Executive.
This research is an example of a multi-disciplinary approach producing vitally important results. By combining expertise in cell biology, chemistry, mathematical modelling and bio-imaging the research team have discovered this coded signal that is going to inform the development of better, more effective drugs.
My life has crept so long on a broken wing
Through cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear,
That I come to be grateful at last for a little thing.
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
Sources: BBSRC news release, January 10, 2005; BBSRC website
Related stories can be found in the following categories.
Biotechnology
Chemistry
Genetics
Medicine.