Researchers Discover New Form Of Communication Between Cells

Researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) working with counterparts at the University of British Columbia have discovered a new form of communication between cells. 

The new mode of communication involves recurring “communities” of cells associated with the developmental process in the lymph gland of the fruit fly. 

The researchers believe the findings may begin to explain how tissue behavior can emerge from single cell interactions.

The team found communities of three to 10 cells, which both communicated extensively amongst themselves and also transmitted to and received information from surrounding cells. 

Cells that participated in multiple communities merged to form larger communication hubs that repeatedly spread and retrieved information throughout the lymph gland in order to synchronize tissue behavior. 

These communities emerged in advanced stages of the lymph gland development, depending on tiny channels that connect adjacent cells and allow them to communicate with each other by directly passing molecules and ions between them.

“We pinpointed an intermediate spatial scale between single-cell and tissue function involving cell communities working together to coordinate the collective. These results highlight how diversity in local cell-cell communication can contribute to collective decision making,” said Prof. Assaf Zaritsky of BGU’s Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).