Abstract
Cells are the basic building blocks from which all of the dazzling array of nature’s creatures have been fashioned. The primary way that cells communicate with each other is by releasing various signaling molecules into their surroundings, where they bind to and activate specific protein receptors on other cells. Proteins are extremely large biological molecules that can detect and respond to informational signals. They regulate the cell’s metabolic activities by turning on chemical reactions that are currently needed and turning off ones that are not. Although each cell contains an organism’s entire genome, only the genes specifying the proteins it needs to perform its current function are activated. Neurons are cells that specialize in transmitting signals from one part of the body to another and forming patterns of connectivity that allow the brain to store and represent information.
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Notes
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The two fundamental domains of living organisms are the Eukaryotes (multicellular animals) and the Prokaryotes, with the latter being comprised of the Eubacteria (bacteria) and the Archaea (methane producing microorganisms that exist in inhospitable locations). The Eukaryotes are the only organisms whose cells contain an identifiable nucleus, although vertebrate germ cells and red blood cells do not have one.
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A few ligands actually pass through the cell membrane and act directly on protein receptors inside the cell, including thyroid and steroid hormones. Some cell-to-cell communication also involves direct contact through the formation of gap junctions that connect the cytoplasm of one cell directly to the cytoplasm of an adjacent one. Gap junctions play an important role in cardiac muscle, where they allow signals from the pacemaker region to spread rapidly between adjacent cells in order to coordinate the heart’s contractions (Holcombe and Paton 1998).
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Proteomics is the study of the structure and function of proteins as vital constituents of living organisms. The proteome is the set of proteins produced by an organism during its lifetime, in the same way that its genome is its set of genes. While the genome is virtually identical in every cell of a given organism, the proteome varies from one cell type to the next, depending on which genes are expressed in it.
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Strictly speaking, transduction is a process that converts an information pattern in one modality into a comparable pattern in another, as when a telephone converts the air pressure patterns produced by the speaker into electrical signals, and then converts them back to air pressure patterns for the listener. This does not happen in signal transduction, since there is no direct correspondence between the information cells detect and the on/off responses they generate.
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The brain is not just composed of neurons, since it contains an equal number of glial cells, such as astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. Glia were initially only thought to take care of support functions in the brain, like providing structural scaffolding, myelinating axons, and combating pathogens. It now appears that they also play a part in information processing by modulating the synaptic transmission of neuronal signals in some parts of the brain.
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Reading, A. (2011). Cellular Signals. In: Meaningful Information. SpringerBriefs in Biology, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0158-2_12
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