COMMUNICATIONS IN

LIVING ORGANISMS
Kambadur Muralidhar
Department of Zoology
University of Delhi
Delhi-110007

University Popular Lecture series

28th January, 2009
WHAT IS A LIVING ORGANISM?
• Philosophy and Science seek answer to
the same question i.e. what is the Truth
about this universe?
• Science i.e. post-renaissance European
science is constrained by the scientific
method described by many especially
Francis Bacon, Rene des Carte and Karl
Popper.
• While Physics constructs the physical
reality of this universe through studies on
the behavior of nature-structure and
function, Chemistry seeks the truth behind
the objects in terms of their fundamental
composition i.e. elements. Chemistry
believes that the interactions among these
fundamental elements manifests as this
sensory perceived world of materials and
objects.
• Science is all about measurement but biology,
the science of life, did not measure anything for
many years. It observed and recorded what
living organisms do. Later, experimental Biology,
guided by the philosophy of Reductionism
revealed to us the internal (PHYSIOLOGY) and
external (BEHAVIOR) living processes.
Ecological and evolutionary phenomena are only
consequences of these fundamental living
processes.
• Living organisms exhibit a high degree of
order in structure and functioning. The
very existence of life has a low probability
given the physical principles of
thermodynamics which reveals the
fundamental behavior of universe as
moving towards disorder than order i.e.
entropic doom.
• Darwin’s Idea of ‘Evolution by Natural
Selection’ is the greatest scientific concept
in human history. It pervades the whole of
Biology as a means of interpretation of
data and as an undercurrent story line.
Biology is a historical science revealing
the story of life on Earth.
• Energy input and communication among
components as well as between
organisms and environment keep the
living organism in a state where all
physiological and behavioral processes
occur like a well orchestrated symphony.
• Communication is simply a codified
message. It takes place, say for example,
among organisms. The most evolved of
these is human language. But we are not
going to discuss this today for many
reasons not the least, is the fact that man
is clever enough to use language to hide
his thoughts and not to convey any
message.
• The evolution of languages over time from
a comparative linguistics perspective
reveals the story of human migrations. But
this evolution is not due to selection
pressure and hence we will not discuss
this also.
• Communication in the living world can be
classified, for the sake of convenience, into
three types.
• ONE, that between or among organisms of a
group ( technically called a population) or
between species. It could be either intentional or
unintentional and results in influence/effect.
• TWO, that between inanimate and animate
world. I do not like to call it even communication.
It is influential but not intentional ( for example,
photo period on living organisms) and
• THREE, that within an organism between
cells/tissues. It is not intentional but results
in regulation of a set point. Let us
understand this a little better.
• We refer to the systems of signals
operating within a higher animal or plant
and which is essentially inter-cellular
communication. The signals are mostly
chemical but occasionally physical. We
will discuss the nature of these signals,
their origin and transmission, their
reception and decoding and how they
bring about control, regulation and order
within the living organism.
 SIGNALS

A. PHYSICAL TYPE
i) LIGHT
ii) PRESSURE (Mechanical)
iii) VOLTAGE
B. CHEMICAL TYPE
i) HORMONES
ii) NEUROTRANSMITTERS
iii) DRUGS (Xenobiotics)
 Some Chemical Signals
• Amino acid derivatives
• Steroids
• Lipids
• Sugars
• Gases like Nitric oxide and Hydrogen
sulphide
• Nucleosides like Adenosine
Major Divisions
of the Nervous
System
Signals originating from hypothalamus
and pituitary gland are chemical in
nature. They belong to a class of
chemicals called peptides and proteins.
FEEDBACK INHIBITION AND
FEEDFORWARD ACTIVATION ARE
CHARECTERISTIC OF SIGNALING
MECHANISMS IN OUR BODY.THERE IS
A NETWORK OF SIGNALING AND
METABOLIC PATHWAYS WITH BUILT IN
FEEDBACK LOOPS WHICH
REGULATES LIVING PROCESSES.
RECEPTOR IS A PHARMACOLOGICAL
TERM. IT REFERS TO THE ENTITY IN
THE TARGET TISSUE WHICH EXHIBITS
THREE FUNCTIONS:
i) Signal discrimination
ii) Signal transduction
iii) Signal amplification
• Schematic
representation of
glycoprotein
hormone receptor
activation and the
possible role of
the Hin R
Transport and fate of major lipid substrates and metabolites
 HEALTH AND UNHEALTH
In human history, different societies have
interpreted health and unhealth differently.
The four humor idea of Hippocrates, the
panchaboota and tridosha ideas in
Ayurveda system or the ideas of ch’i,prana
and pneuma in Chinese, Hindu and Greek
thoughts are some examples.
The Placebo Effect
 Mind (Brain)

Immune system Endocrine system

 The Neuroendocrine System
Interacts with the Immune System
PHYSIOLOGY

Not Fat, Just Well Covered

Adélie penguins breed on the Antarctic ice, and the chicks, to
survive, must rapidly establish a layer of fat to protect
themselves against the subzero temperatures and to enable
them to enter the water a mere 2 months after hatching. Raccurt
et al. investigated the transcriptional program responsible for this
speedy production of adipose tissue by taking autopsy samples
from the chicks of 16 out of the 34,000 penguin pairs that breed
on the Pointe Geologie archipelago. They then measured the
expression levels of transcription factors, hormone receptors,
and other genes known from in vitro studies of mouse and
chicken cells to be involved in the growth and differentiation of
adipocytes. In the first 2 weeks, while a chick was at least
partially protected by sheltering in a parent’s brood pouch,
growth hormone and 3,5,3'-triiodo-thyronine (T3) receptors along
with the transcription factor GATA3 marked a period of intensive
adipocyte differentiation and development. After day 15, when
chicks had outgrown their brood pouches, lipoprotein lipase,
PPAR , and other factors associated with adipocyte aturation
and lipid storage took over to produce large fat-filled cells that
formed a thermally insulating layer. This is similar to the changes
seen in chicken cells, but subtle differences demonstrate how in
penguins that pattern is tailored to their particular habitat. — CS*

Am. J. Physiol. Regul. Integr. Comp. Physiol. 295,

10.1152/ajpregu.90371.2008 (2008).

SCIENCE 24 OCTOBER 2008 VOL 322, 506

Gurdon’s experiment demonstrating
that a differentiated cell contains all the
genes needed for the development of
a complete organism. The nucleus of a
frog egg was destroyed by ultraviolet
irradiation and was replaced by the
nucleus from the fully differentiated
skin cells of another frog. The egg with
its transplanted nucleus was allowed
to grow and it developed into a normal
tadpole
 SUMMARY

INFORMATION TRANSFER THROUGH

SIGNALS, RECEPTORS AND FEEDBACK
LOOPS MEDIATE ALL PHYSIOLOGICAL
AND BEHAVIOURAL PROCESSES
ACHIEVING CORDINATION AND
HEALTH. DEFECT AT ANY STEP RESULTS
IN UNHEALTH BUT ALSO SUGGESTS
THERAPEUTIC APPROACHES.
Feed back inhibition usually prevents dopamine overproduction, but impairment of the feedback
pathway in Huntington’s disease allows dopamine overproduction
Feedback motifs have important functions in
signaling systems. (A) Negative feedback can
stabilize basal signaling levels, limit maximal
signaling output, enable adaptive responses, or
create transient signal responses. (B) Positive
feedback can amplify signaling responses, alter
kinetics, or create bistable switches. (C) Mixtures of
positive and negative feedback can create single
pulses or oscillatory
signal outputs. Mixed feedbacks can also trigger local
signals, self-propagating waves, or cell polarization
Addition of extra feedback to core
functions can be used to integrate
key signaling characteristics or
enhance the robustness of
important functions. (A) Combining
two negative feedback loops can
independently stabilize basal
signaling and limit maximal signal
output. (B) Adding a negative
feedback loop to the oscillator in
Fig. 2C can result in sharper
spikes, an increased input range
over which oscillations occur and
an increased output frequency
range. (C) A system made up of a
dual fast and slow positive
feedback loops can exhibit
transient or persistent bistable
states if the fast or both positive
feedbacks are engaged