INTERCELLULAR COMMUNICATION
Objectives
At the end of the lecture, the students will be able to:
1- Recognize mechanisms involved in intercellular communications
2- Describe Direct (electrical) gap junctions and their location.
3- Understand indirect (Chemical) mechanisms of cells
communication.
4- Distinguish down and up regulation of the receptors.
INTERCELLULAR COMMUNICATION
❑ Cells communicate with each other by sending and
receiving signals from one cell to another.
❑ Signals are transmitted from one cell to another by
either of two mechanisms; electrical (direct), or
chemical (indirect) mechanisms.
[A] Electrical (Direct) Transmission
❖ This type of communication occurs when there are
gap junctions between the cells.
❖ In this case depolarization wave prorogates from one
cell to another without any significant resistance.
❖This type of communication is found between the
cardiac muscle cells and simple unit smooth muscles.
[B] Chemical (Indirect) Transmission
This is the most common of communication between cells.
In this case, a cell release a certain substance called the
chemical messenger or the chemical transmitter into the
extracellular fluid.
The transmitter travels in the extracellular fluid till it reaches
the target cell and affects it in the desired way.
Indirect transmission includes
the following mechanisms
Synaptic transmission
A synapse is the junctional area between a neuron and another cell.
In synaptic transmission a chemical transmitter is released from the
presynaptic nerve terminal.
The transmitter diffuses in the interstitial fluid across the synaptic
cleft to reach the postsynaptic membrane of the postsynaptic cell, where
it acts on its specific receptors.
Paracrine transmission
In paracrine transmission the chemical messengers are
metabolic products released from cells e.g. Somatostatin.
Histamine, Prostaglandin.
They diffuse in the interstitial fluid and affect the
receptors in nearby cells.
Endocrine transmission
In endocrine transmission, the messengers
are hormones released from ductless endocrine
gland cells, circulate with the blood stream till
they reach the target cells.
The first step for a messenger to act on the
target cells is to bind to its specific receptor at the
cell. This binding activates the receptors. The
activated receptors starts a series of reaction but
end by the desired effect on the cell.
Summary
ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION CHEMICAL TRANSMISSION
Gap Junction Synaptic Paracrine Endocrine
Signal transmission Directly from cell to cell Across Synaptic cleft Diffusion of interstitial fluid Via Circulating blood
Local or General Local Local Local General
Anatomic location and
Specificity depends on Anatomic location Receptors Receptor
receptors
Somatostatin from D cells
Examples Between myocardial cells Synapsis between neurons of pancreatic island on α&β Thyroxin
cells
CELL RECEPTORS
Receptors are proteins or glycoproteins
present in the cell membrane, the cytoplasm,
or the nucleus, which can combine with
specific substances called “Ligands”
Receptors are specific, i.e. each receptor
can combine only with its specific ligand
(chemical transmitter, hormone or drugs)
Normal, the receptor are inactive during rest, but
when they combine with their specific ligands they
become activated and start a series of cellular
reactions to stimulate or inhibit a certain cellular
function.
So, we might have a stimulatory receptors (Rs) or an
inhibitory receptors (Ri).
Down regulation of Receptors
When a ligand is present in excess, the number of
the receptors for this ligand decreases and also, the
sensitivity to the ligand also decreases.
This is called “down regulation” of the receptor
activity.
This explains why in some cases of diabetes, if large
dose of insulin are repeatedly injected the sensitivity of
insulin decreases.
Also, tolerance to morphine occurs by repeated
administration of morphine because the number and
sensitivity of morphine receptors in the body decrease.
Up regulation of Receptors
When the ligand is deficient, the number of
receptors for this ligand increases as well as
their sensitivity.
This is called up regulation of receptor
activity.
This explains why, after denervation of an
organ, it becomes highly sensitive to the
chemical transmitter of the degenerated
nerves (denervation hypersensitivity).
The hypersensitivity occurs because of
absence of chemical transmitter of the
degenerated nerves increases the number and
sensitivity for that transmitter.
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