The distinguishing electrical properties of cancer cells.

Abstract This volume is the natural follow-up to Arthur Reber’s 2019 book, The First Minds: Caterpillars, ‘Karyotes, and Consciousness (TFM). In that earlier work, the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC) theory was developed based on a number of earlier efforts published in a variety of journals between 1997 and 2019 as well as in talks, colloquia, and presentations at conferences. The core proposition in TFM was that life and mind are co-terminous. All organisms, all species extant and extinct, are sentient. All have an existentially secure consciousness—without which they would have been evolutionary dead-ends, unable to survive in the chaotic, dangerous environment in which life first appeared. And, importantly, all forms of sentience, all forms of cognitive functioning right up to and including those expressed by humans, evolved from the original expression of consciousness at the birth of life in prokaryotes. The proposition that all life forms evolved from those first unicellular species is a widely accepted, foundational principle of the biological and social sciences. The CBC simply applies that same proposition to sentience. 

The Sentient Cell

Cells evolved some 4 billion years ago, and since then the integrity of the structural and functional continuity of cellular life has been maintained via highly conserved and ancient processes of cell reproduction and division. The plasma membrane as well as all the cytoplasmic structures are reproduced and inherited uninterruptedly by each of the two daughter cells resulting from every cell division. Although our understanding of the evolutionary emergence of the very first cells is obscured by the extremely long timeline since that revolutionary event, the generally accepted position is that the de novo formation of cells is not possible; all present cells are products of other prior cells. This essential biological principle was first discovered by Robert Remak and then effectively coined as Omnis Cellula e Cellula (every cell of the cell) by Rudolf Virchow: all currently living cells have direct structural and functional connections to the very first cells. Based on our previous theoretical analysis, all cells are endowed with individual sentient cognition that guides their individual agency, behaviour and evolution. There is a vital consequence of this new sentient and cognitive view of cells: when cells assemble as functional tissue ecologies and organs within multicellular organisms, including plants, animals and humans, these cellular aggregates display derivative versions of aggregate tissue- and organ-specific sentience and consciousness. This innovative view of the evolution and physiology of all currently living organisms supports a singular principle: all organismal physiology is based on cellular physiology that extends from unicellular roots.

Sentient cells as basic units of tissues, organs and organismal physiology.

Extract The perfect book for any scientifically curious individual seeking updates to research on my favourite subject in all the world—the intelligent living cell.Brian J. Ford President Emeritus University of Cambridge Society for the Application of Research (UK) The most comprehensive vision of post-neo-Darwinian biology to date. Life is not about genes and digital information codes. Life is about sentience, consciousness, mind, and intelligence. The building blocks of sentience and consciousness are cells. A landmark book that heralds a welcome paradigm shift in biology.Predrag B. Slijepčević Department of Life Sciences, Brunel University London (UK) In 20 years of researching biological cognition in unicellular organisms I have studiously avoided what I call the ‘C-word’, consciousness. The Sentient Cell has made me thoroughly reconsider my reticence. It is a remarkable book that exposes the standard model of consciousness for the early 19th-century relic it is, providing abundant empirical evidence of why it should be supplanted. An excellent introduction to a necessary conversation that will unfold over the coming decades and which sits squarely on the right side of history. Vive la révolution!Pamela Lyon University of Adelaide (Australia) 

Advanced Praise for The Sentient Cell: The Cellular Foundations of Consciousness

Virtually all cells use energy-driven, ion-specific membrane pumps to maintain large transmembrane gradients of Na+, K+, Cl-, Mg++, and Ca++, but the corresponding evolutionary benefit remains unclear. We propose that these gradients enable a dynamic and versatile biological system that acquires, analyzes, and responds to environmental information. We hypothesize that environmental signals are transmitted into the cell by ion fluxes along pre-existing gradients through gated ion-specific membrane channels. The consequent changes in cytoplasmic ion concentration can generate a local response or orchestrate global/regional cellular dynamics through wire-like ion fluxes along pre-existing and self-assembling cytoskeleton to engage the endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, and nucleus. 

Modeling non-genetic information dynamics in cells using reservoir computing

An accurate characterization of the polyelectrolyte properties of actin filaments might provide a deeper understanding of the fundamental mechanisms governing the intracellular ionic wave packet propagation in neurons. Infinitely long cylindrical models for actin filaments and approximate electrochemical theories for the electrolyte solutions were recently used to characterize these properties in in vitro and intracellular conditions. This article uses a molecular structure model for actin filaments to investigate the impact of roughness and finite size on the mean electrical potential, ionic density distributions, currents, and conductivities. We solved the electrochemical theories numerically without further approximations. Our findings bring new insights into the electrochemical interactions between a filament's irregular surface charge density and the surrounding medium. The irregular shape of the filament structure model generated pockets, or hot spots, where the current density reached higher or lower magnitudes than those in neighboring areas throughout the filament surface. It also revealed the formation of a well-defined asymmetric electrical double layer with a thickness larger than that commonly used for symmetric models. 

Molecular structure study on the polyelectrolyte properties of actin filaments

http://manuscript.elsevier.com/S0010465522000352/pdf/S0010465522000352.pdf

Electrical impulse characterization along actin filaments in pathological conditions

Actin filament's polyelectrolyte and hydrodynamic properties, their interactions with the biological environment, and external force fields play an essential role in their biological activities in eukaryotic cellular processes. In this article, we introduce a unique approach that combines dynamics and electrophoresis light-scattering experiments, an extended semiflexible worm-like chain model, and an asymmetric polymer length distribution theory to characterize the polyelectrolyte and hydrodynamic properties of actin filaments in aqueous electrolyte solutions. A fitting approach was used to optimize the theories and filament models for hydrodynamic conditions. We used the same sample and experimental conditions and considered several g-actin and polymerization buffers to elucidate the impact of their chemical composition, reducing agents, pH values, and ionic strengths on the filament translational diffusion coefficient, electrophoretic mobility, structure factor, asymmetric length distribution, effective filament diameter, electric charge, zeta potential, and semiflexibility. Compared to those values obtained from molecular structure models, our results revealed a lower value of the effective G-actin charge and a more significant value of the effective filament diameter due to the formation of the double layer of the electrolyte surrounding the filaments. Contrary to the data usually reported from electron micrographs, the lower values of our results for the persistence length and average contour filament length agree with the significant difference in the association rates at the filament ends that shift to sub-micro lengths, which is the maximum of the length distribution. 

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/14/12/2438/pdf?version=1655885635

Hydrodynamic and Polyelectrolyte Properties of Actin Filaments: Theory and Experiments

Abstract Actin filament’s polyelectrolyte and hydrodynamic properties, their interactions with the biological environment, and external force fields play an essential role in their biological activities in eukaryotic cellular processes. In this article, we introduce a unique approach that combines dynamics and electrophoresis light scattering experiments, an extended semiflexible worm-like chain model, and an asymmetric polymer length distribution theory to characterize the polyelectrolyte and hydrodynamic properties of actin filaments in aqueous electrolyte solutions. A fitting approach was used to optimize the theories and filament models for hydrodynamic conditions. We used the same sample and experimental conditions and considered several g-actin and polymerization buffers to elucidate the impact of their chemical composition, reducing agents, pH values, and ionic strengths on the filament translational diffusion coefficient, electrophoretic mobility, structure factor, asymmetric length distribution, effective filament diameter, electric charge, zeta potential, and semiflexibility. Compared to those values obtained from molecular structure models, our results revealed a lower value of the effective G-actin charge and a more significant value of the effective filament diameter due to the formation of the double layer of the electrolyte surrounding the filaments. Contrary to the data usually reported from electron micrographs, the lower values of our results for the persistence length and average contour filament length agree with the significant difference in the association rates at the filament ends that shift to sub-micro lengths, the maximum of the length distribution. 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2022/04/29/2022.01.11.475973.full.pdf

Cytoskeleton filaments have the extraordinary ability to change conformations dynamically in response to alterations of the number density of actins/tubulin, number density and type of binding agents, and electrolyte concentration. This property is crucial for eukaryotic cells to achieve specific biological functions in different cellular compartments. Conventional approaches on biopolymers solution break down for cytoskeleton filaments because they entail several approximations to treat their polyelectrolyte and mechanical properties. In this article, we introduce a novel density functional theory for polydisperse, semiflexible cytoskeleton filaments. The approach accounts for the equilibrium polymerization kinetics, length and orientation filament distributions, as well as the electrostatic interaction between filaments and the electrolyte. This is essential for cytoskeleton polymerization in different cell compartments generating filaments of different lengths, sometimes long enough to become semiflexible. We characterized the thermodynamics properties of actin filaments in electrolyte aqueous solutions. We calculated the free energy, pressure, chemical potential and second virial coefficient for each filament conformation. We also calculated the phase diagram of actin filaments solution and compared with the corresponding results in in-vitro experiments. 

Theory for weakly polydisperse cytoskeleton filaments

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Papers

Molecular structure study on the polyelectrolyte properties of actin filaments

Electrical impulse characterization along actin filaments in pathological conditions

Hydrodynamic and Polyelectrolyte Properties of Actin Filaments: Theory and Experiments

Hydrodynamic and Polyelectrolyte Properties of Actin Filaments: Theory and Experiments

Theory for weakly polydisperse cytoskeleton filaments