Oscillating fields about growing cells

Abstract

Cells in the reproductive state seem to act like small signal generators and emit radiation which is detectable by small polarizable particles nearby in a medium of suitable osmolarity, but very low conductivity. Evidence for this was seen upon using mouse sarcoma (ascites) cells, and by comparing rapidly dividing mouse L fibroblasts with confluent ones. Reproducing cells attracted many more highly polarizable BaTiO3 particles than they did of the much less polarizable BaSO4 (dielectric constants 4000 and 11, respectively). This preferential attraction of certain cells for highly polarizable small particles is interpreted as due, in large measure, to the action of dielectrophoresis on a very small scale—evoked by the presence of nonuniform electric fields of cellular origin acting upon the nearby neutral, polarizable particles—a process called microdielectrophoresis. Consideration of the conductive nature of the surrounding medium forces the conclusion that the cell-generated fields must be oscillatory in nature and have a frequency in the order of a megahertz. These observations recall predictions made earlier by Szent-Gyorgyi on cellular electronic processes, and by Frohlich on the possibility of Bose-Einstein condensations to a single quantum state of oscillatory ferroelectric character, due to cooperative long-range interactions among dipolar features of cells. The persistence of oscillatory energy in the lower modes is reminiscent of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam problem.