You are investigating the transmission of a particular cellular response in cult

Question

You are investigating the transmission of a particular cellular response in cultured cardiac cells. You suspect that there is some sort of cell-cell communication associated with this response because when you use extremely small doses of ligand (approximately 10 molecules of ligand in the dilution) you can stimulate profound responses from the cultured cells. Based on your knowledge of the responses, you suspect that calcium ions are involved and that signals for cytoplasmic release of the calcium ions are being transmitted from cell to cell via gap junctions. No factors such as hormones have been detected. Experimentally, how could you test your hypothesis?

Explanation / Answer

Genetically engineered cells must be employed to know the transmission of calcium ions through gap junctions. The cell lines containing connexin mutants must be used as the mutant connexin cells will be inactive. If the calcium ions pass through the gap junctions that contain the inactive connexin protein, the calcium ions will not be able to pass through the gap junctions and this information provide the evidence, that calcium ions pass through the gap junctions.

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