Biology class has taught us that red blood cells, also known as erythrocytes, are the principal carriers of oxygen (O2) throughout the body of all vertebrates, including humans. On its way through the capillaries inside the body, these tiny cells release oxygen, feeding the body’s internal processes and keeping the organism alive.
Not only that, but we’ve also revealed through years of medical research that our bodies also make use of electricity for some of its processes—perhaps the most famous of which being the electrical interactions between neurons in the brain.
Now, the concept of electricity existing inside the cell has been known for a while now; ionic imbalance between intracellular and extracellular areas create what is known as membrane potential; this, according to experts, plays a crucial role in communications between nerves and muscles.
Seeing electrical activity outside the cell, however, is something novel—and scientists from the University of Surrey found just that. Their research was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.
In the case of the Surrey research team, spearheaded by Prof. Michael Hughes, they detected membrane potential outside the cell wall; this find seemingly adds yet another detail to long-established notions about the cell, and will likely demand further research as to what roles this outside detectable potential may have in the body.
Said a University of Surrey press release: “This means that cells effectively act as tiny transmitters, electrically changing the environment around them.”
The Surrey team also found that these outside potentials exhibit circadian rhythm, the so-called 24-hour “internal body clock” followed by organisms in their daily bodily functions. As peaks of bodily function corresponding to these rhythms are also associated with a time of day when most cardiovascular diseases are known to occur, determining how the cells’ outside potential responds to these rhythms is a tantalizing area for future research.
Said Hughes: “Biology is often reduced to interactions between big molecules, but cell-scale science is an essential area of study. […] By reintroducing the electrical element, we are looking for—and finding—a whole new way to understand how the body works.”
Hughes and team mention that detecting these findings in other kinds of cells may lead the way to new pathways for medical treatments.
(For more body news, check out the study by South Korean scientists in creating “artificial mitochondria.”)
References
- Hughes, M. P., Kruchek, E. J., Beale, A. D., Kitcatt, S. J., Qureshi, S., Trott, Z. P., Charbonnel, O., Agbaje, P. A., Henslee, E. A., Dorey, R. A., Lewis, R., & Labeed, F. H. (2021). Vm-related extracellular potentials observed in red blood cells. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 19446. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98102-9
- Sci-News. (2021, October 13). Red Blood Cells Act as Tiny Electrodes, New Research Shows. Sci-News. http://www.sci-news.com/biology/extracellular-potential-red-blood-cells-10160.html
- The University of Surrey. (2021, October 6). The discovery of red blood cells acting as micro-electrodes opens new doors in medical research. The University of Surrey. https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/discovery-red-blood-cells-acting-micro-electrodes-opens-new-doors-medical-research
