2017-08-17 19:46:39
Communication is essential for the existence of any living being. From the smallest and solitary amoeba to the neuron in our brain, all cells depend on their ability to communicate with the environment.
Between each cell and the environment that surrounds it, a transfer of information is established that has molecules of very different types as material support. As it happens in our daily life, for cellular communication to be successful, a sender, a receiver and a medium through which the information flows are needed. Thus, the cells emit their messages in the form of chemical molecules that travel through the medium looking for a receptor. These receptors are also found in the cell walls and, when the molecule that brings the appropriate information reaches them, it binds to it and activates a signal that is transmitted to the interior of the cell, causing a response.
Our guest today in Talking to Scientists, María Teresa Miras Portugal, professor of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology IV at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of the Complutense University of Madrid, is dedicated to investigating signaling cascades and receptors between cell populations of the nervous system.
Communication between cells has a long history. Already in the most primitive times, the unicellular organisms that were abundant in the small pools of water learned to communicate with each other in such a way that, when the environmental conditions changed, for example, when the water in the pond diminished and threatened to disappear, these microorganisms chemical messages were sent that induced the cells to clump together to form a larger and more resistant body in the face of drought.
Those primitive ways of communicating were evolving. The increasing complexity of the organization of multicellular beings demanded a much more sophisticated relationship and different communication cascades began to appear, operating in a wide variety of circumstances.
In our body there are communication signals that have different scope. Hormones, secreted by certain glands, are distributed throughout the body and influence the function of cells far away from their place of origin. Adrenaline, for example, generated by the adrenal glands, runs through our entire body and modifies the way cells of different organs act: it increases heart rate, contracts blood vessels, dilates air ducts, prepares us for a situation of danger, either by facing it or by fleeing.
Neurotransmitters, on the other hand, are short-haul messengers because they pass information from one neuron to another, crossing the narrow space that separates their synaptic connections. These neurotransmitters have been known from the reaction caused by certain substances that block or interfere with the transmission between neurons. This is the case with neurotoxic poisons, such as curare, which blocks neuron receptors and prevents communication, killing the poisoned person by suffocation.
Among the enormous variety of neurotransmitters and receptors that are known and studied, María Teresa Miras focuses her research on the so-called purinergic receptors, receptors that are characterized by containing in their chemical formulation a purine ring, present in adenine and guanine, Two of the bases that make up our DNA.
To understand the importance of these purinergic systems, our guest tells how commonly used actions, such as drinking a cup of coffee, affect them. When our body, at the end of the afternoon, prepares for the night’s rest, it releases adenosine, a neurotransmitter that binds to the receptors of the neurons and makes them sleepy. When drinking a cup of coffee, caffeine enters the bloodstream and conflicts with adenosine, it is its antagonist, it prevents its function and, as a consequence, we remain awake.
Studies of the purinergic systems provide basic information on the functioning of the nervous system and open the doors to the investigation of possible therapies that could be useful to alleviate or at least slow down the process of deterioration suffered by patients with certain diseases such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s.
I invite you to listen to María Teresa Miras Portugal, professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology IV at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the Complutense University of Madrid.
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