Discovery Of Intracellular Communication

Posted: 4/13/2019

Recently read this article: How secret conversations inside cells are transforming biology Organelles — the cell’s workhorses — mingle far more than scientists ever appreciated

A highly recommendable overview article!

Scientists can be extremely blind, dismissive, and ignorant for a very long time!

This is another, obvious case! So about 1990, a female scientist (Jean Vance) discovered and described it in a paper that the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria inside a cell form form contacts together crucial for the synthesis of lipids.

Some salient quotes from above article (emphasis added):

1. “The first recorded glimpses of contact between organelles emerged about 40 years before Vance’s discovery. In the 1950s, microscopists in France snapped pictures of mitochondria making intimate connections with the ER in rat cells. But biologists at the time didn’t think they had a function.”
2. “A few other scientists, working between the 1960s and 1980s, saw tantalizing hints that parts of the ER cosy up to other structures — including the Golgi apparatus”
3. “Researchers [only] now recognize that interactions between organelles are ubiquitous, with almost every type coming into close conversation with every other type” (emphasis added)
4. “That was the backdrop against which Vance’s 1990 paper landed. It was seldom cited until the past decade, when the field rediscovered her work. That’s also when researchers began to pinpoint the specific proteins — called tethers — that form the contact points between organelles.”
5. “These sites [contacts between organelles] transmit cholesterol, oily waxes and other fatty molecules … Calcium, hydrogen peroxide and other water-soluble compounds also flow through these portals, which helps the cell to aggregate these molecules for specific reactions”
6. “The ER “looked like a hand clamped around a mitochondrion and squeezing it”, says Voeltz. Over time, the mitochondria constricted at these points and split into two”
7. “likens the relationship between the ER and mitochondria to a sensual and dynamic flamenco performance”

It appears that the newly rediscovered intracellular communication and exchange of molecules opens up a new and huge chapter in biology!