You Are Investigating the Transmission of a Particular Cellular Response

question 53

Essay

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?

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