Abstract
Cell communication, in the sense of electrical coupling and easy passage of substances from cell to cell, is still a fascinating mystery. Most cells of most organisms are electrically coupled, but we do not know either why or how. [In the special case of electrical synapses, we think we know why (Bennett, 1973a), but certainly we do not know how.] In some coupled cell systems we can watch exogenous substances (particularly fluorescent dyes such as Procion Yellow MX4R) flowing from one cell to the other, and thus it has been concluded that electrically coupled cells must have highly permeable membrane junctions (Loewenstein, 1973; Bennett, 1973a). Shortly after the initial experimental observations, a very elegant and fruitful working hypothesis was proposed (Loewenstein, 1966; Payton et al., 1969). The hypothesis postulated the existence of hydrophilic channels connecting the communicating cells, so that a cytoplasmic particle could travel from one cell to the other without leaving the intracellular environment. These transjunctional channels were supposed to be a short and convenient route for both small ions (thus explaining electrical coupling) and larger particles (explaining high junctional permeability), which could travel this way from one cell to the other and thus avoid a detour through the extracellular milieu.
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© 1977 Plenum Press, New York
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Politoff, A.L. (1977). Protein Semiconduction: An Alternative Explanation of Electrical Coupling. In: De Mello, W.C. (eds) Intercellular Communication. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2283-2_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2283-2_5
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