Electrical oscillations in microtubules
This study introduces a multi-scale electrokinetic model to characterize electrical impulses and ionic current propagation along microtubules, incorporating atomistic protein details and biological environments. It emphasizes nanopore-mediated coupling between microtubule surfaces as a key mechanism enabling luminal currents, energy transfer, amplification, and oscillatory dynamics. The authors report pharmacological inhibition experiments (Taxol and Gd3+) supporting the interpretation that nanopores function as active nanogates contributing to transistor-like behavior.
Key points
- Presents a multi-scale electrokinetic model describing ionic currents along microtubule surfaces as coupled nonlinear transmission lines.
- Includes a nanopore coupling mechanism between inner and outer microtubule surfaces to enable luminal currents and energy transfer.
- Analyzes how electrolyte conditions and voltage stimuli affect impulse attenuation, oscillation, and propagation velocity.
- Reports that nanopore functionality is central to microtubule electrical activity in the model and experiments.
- Describes pharmacological inhibition (Taxol and Gd3+) as supporting nanopores acting as functional nanogates rather than passive defects.
- Interprets microtubules as capable of oscillatory amplification and transistor-like behavior under the studied conditions.
Referenced studies & papers
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AI-generated summaries may be incomplete or incorrect. This content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice.
AI-generated summaries may be incomplete or incorrect. This content is for informational purposes only and is not medical advice.
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