(Web Desk) - New research into the electrical communication channels between nerve and muscle cells in zebrafish will provide new insights into the nature of muscle disorders in humans, according to researchers.
In the 1980s, Judith Eisen, a distinguished neuroscientist, noticed a pattern between zebrafish muscle cells that she couldn’t explain, as per a recent press release.
Due to their genetic similarities to humans, a viable argument positioned zebrafish as a useful animal with which to study the mechanics of human disease.
Thus, at the time, Eisen along with others at the University of Oregon were working to establish the zebrafish as a new model organism for clinical work as well as biological research.
Zebrafish and humans share many of the same genes. Even better: as transparent beings, they provide a window into the process.
“We can image electricity flowing through cells in real-time,” a postdoc involved in the new research at the University of Oregon stated.
Specifically, however, they offered potential insight into the development of vertebrate animals and, therefore, the genetics of muscular disorders in humans.
As is often the case with science, discoveries can happen by accident. The zebrafish was a new animal on the clinical scene, so the systems for care and maintenance had yet to be developed.
Thus, one day, while Eisen and her colleague were illuminating nerve cells with a tracing dye, and some of it ended up mixing with muscle cells.
The way the dye spread through the muscles gave these researchers pause. It suggested cell-to-cell communication was happening “via some physical connecting channel rather than via longer-range chemical messengers.”
This discovery contradicted the commonly held belief of how adult muscle cells communicate.
The phenomenon known as bioelectricity is defined by the communication between cells via electrical currents. “They knew that such communication channels existed, but they didn’t know that genes created them.”
New research just published by the University of Oregon extrapolates on this communication between nerve cells and muscle cells. They were able to identify the genes, as per a press release, that control a healthy system and thereby its dysfunction.
“The transfer of bioelectricity from one organ system to another is critical for development and adult function,” Miller said.
“Finding the genes that allow this to occur, understanding how they work, and exactly what goes wrong when communication is disrupted, will provide new insight into human disease.”