Abstract It is possible that the nucleolous inside the cell plays the role of a “gravity receptor”. Furthermore, cells up to 10μm in diameter can demonstrate some effect due to the redistribution of mitochondria or nucleolous. Effects of gravity should be present in various cell systems where larger objects such as the ribosomes move from cell to cell. In this paper we study the effects of gravity on cells. In particular, we examine the resulting intracellular molecular distribution due to Brownian motion and the ordered distribution of molecules under the action of gravity, where n 0 is the number per unit volume at certain level, and n is the number per unit volume above that level. This is an experiment that takes place at a certain orbital altitude in a spacecraft in orbit around Earth, where the acceleration due to the central field is corrected for the oblateness and also the rotation of the Earth. We found that equatorial circular and elliptical orbits have the highest n/n 0 ratios. This experiment takes place in circular and elliptical orbits, with eccentricities e =0, 0.1 and involves a bacterial cell at an orbital altitude of 300km. We found that n/n 0 =1.00299 and 1.0037 respectively, which is still a 0.6–0.7 % higher than n/n 0 =0.0996685 calculated on the surface of the Earth. Examining mitochondria in similar orbital experiments we found that equatorial orbits result to higher n/n 0 ratios. In particular, we found that n/n 0 =8.38119, where an elliptical orbit of eccentricity e =0.1 results to n/n 0 =13.8525. Both are high above 100%, signifying the importance of Brownian motion over gravity. Our results are of interest to biomedical applications. Molecular concentrations are important for various processes such as the embryogenesis, positional homeostasis and its relation to cell energy expenditure, cell torque, cell deformation, and more. These results indicate that statistical molecular distributions play an important role for the recognition of a particular environment by the cell, in biological space experiment to come.
Intracellular molecular distributions in spacecraft experiments in orbit around Earth
Advances in Space Research ; 49 , 7 ; 1203-1211
2011-12-27
9 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Intracellular molecular distributions in spacecraft experiments in orbit around Earth
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