BIOELECTROMAGNETICS FOR NON-CHEMICAL COMMUNICATION AND SIGNALING

A long history of extensive research on intercellular communication is found in the literature, which has primarily focused on receptor-based chemical signaling, molecular mechanisms, cell recognition, and cell sur­face receptors; however very few studies have focused on light-mediated interactions of cells, tissues and whole organisms [115]. Kaznacheyev and colleagues in Russia performed over 12,000 experiments in studying distant intercellular communication from two physically separated living tissues or cultures. They used two hermetically sealed vessels attached to each other via an interchangeable window composed of glass or quartz, where each vessel contained an identical culture. One of the vessel’s cells was treated with a specific toxin, i. e., virus, chemical or radiation, while keeping the neighboring culture physically isolated from it. If a quartz window was used, so as to allow UV in addition to the visible and IR range of photons, approximately 75% of the physically isolated cultures began exhibiting toxin specific morphological stress and cell death 12 h after the directly exposed neighbor. However no effect was found if glass was used in the window to block the UV radiations indicating that biophoton signals passing through the quartz window were responsible for the specific mor­phological response [116-121]. By implementing a photomultiplier tube (PMT), they observed that normal functioning cells emit a uniform photon flux, while with the introduction of a toxin the radiation flux which inten­sifies at periodic intervals which depend on the different exposed toxin [120]. The harmonic relationship between the UV, visible and IR bands and their phase orientation has been suggested as a potential mechanism of intercellular communication [122] since the existence of coherent fields gives rise to destructive and constructive interference patterns in the space between living cells [123]. The biocommunication in these mutual inter­ference regions leads to an optimized signal/noise ratio as the wave pat­terns achieve maximum destructive interference or compensation. Once the coherent superposition of modes of biophoton fields breaks down, one expects an increase in biophotonic emission, which was confirmed by Schamhart and Wijk [124], by examining the delayed luminescence of tu­mor cells as they lose their coherence and capacity for destructive interfer­ence by exhibiting exponential as opposed to hyperbolic decay [123]. The importance of biophotons in inter — and intracellular communication has been further confirmed through many other experiments that have been listed in the Table 1.

TABLE 1: Overview ofbiophotonic and distant intercellular interactions (D. I.) experiments, delayed luminescence (D. L.), and spontaneous emission (S. E.).

Culture

Experiment

Effect

Reference

Daphnia

D. I. & S. E.

Established destructive interference found at natural population density

[125]

D. tertiolecta

D. I. & D. L.

Changes in external environment dem­onstrated dose/intensity dependent decay

curves

[126]

P. elegans

D. I. w/E-Field

E-field stimulated distant culture’s pho­tonic activity and synchronization

[127,128]

Gonyaulax sp.

D. I.

Established destructive interference and synchronization of photon pulses

[129]

XC tumor cells

D. I.

Dense cell culture stimulated growth rate of isolated culture via optical contact

[116]

Epithelial cells

D. I. w/H2O2

Reduction in protein, increased nuclear activation, and structural damage

[130]

E. coli

D. I.

Synchronized growth parameters when in optical contact of Vis-IR.

[96]

S. cerevisiae

D. I.

Stimulation of cellular subdivision via optical coupling with culture of same type

[131]

P. fluorescens

D. I.

Long range interactions of an isolated culture diminished adhesion between cells of another culture

[132]

V. costicola

D. I.

Isolated treated culture stimulated growth of second culture of same species

[133]

Fibroblasts

D. I. w/Viruses

Three viral effects transferred to 72-78% of distant isolated cells

[134]

D. I. w/HgCl2

Effects transferred to 78% of distant isolated cells

D. I. w/Rad

UV radiation effects transferred to 82% of distant isolated cells

L. pekennisis

S. E.

Measured coherent emission from 200-800 nm which differed between male and female specimens

[135]