cellular intelligence:+

Many complex proteins work with actin to produce its many functions. One large family of proteins, called tropomyosins regulates the function of actin filaments in both muscle and non-muscle cells. These proteins consist of rod-shaped coiled molecules.
Actin filaments form a mesh just under the cellular membrane called the cortical network. It links receptor proteins that lie across the membrane to the molecules inside the cell. These receptors can connect with microbes outside the cell and form a communication between the outside the cell and the cytoskeleton structure inside the cell. In this way actin with myosin motors can drag the virus that is still outside the cell to a better spot for entry.


Actin structures are constantly changing as the cell moves and functions—building, breaking down and rebuilding in new ways. Signals from receptors in the membrane direct the changes of actin structures through a series of more than twenty different enzymes called RHO GTPases. These regulate creation of membranes and movement and polarity of cells.
Viruses are particularly focused on manipulating the RHO enzymes. Proteins from viruses alter the actin structures and their functions. It is quite remarkable that viruses can subvert any structure in their way, while they reproduce themselves.

Virus Effects on Actin

The first observed effects of adenoviruses on cells were changes in cell shape, such as becoming more rounded and having more pseudopodia; although the cells had new pseudopodia, they were unable to move. Affected cells divided more frequently and piled up on top of each other. Cells did not have the usual junctures between them. Some of these changes can occur naturally in a dividing cell, such as the more rounded shape.



Science has finally given us an anatomical place and process in the cell that can respond to Energy and vibration, sound (naturally) but also movement, mind and breath. YAY! we can explain partially why ancient and sacred practices have lasted for generations – they do our cells good.
This fabric called the Cytoskeleton likes to be taken out for walks, to stretch, to dance, prance, relax and unwind.  Doing yoga, weight lifting, swimming and tai chi all just some of the ways to strengthen and soften the strings of your cells.

Actin structures are constantly changing as the cell moves and functions—building, breaking down and rebuilding in new ways. Signals from receptors in the membrane direct the changes of actin structures through a series of more than twenty different enzymes called RHO GTPases. These regulate creation of membranes and movement and polarity of cells.
Viruses are particularly focused on manipulating the RHO enzymes. Proteins from viruses alter the actin structures and their functions. It is quite remarkable that viruses can subvert any structure in their way, while they reproduce themselves.

Virus Effects on Actin

The first observed effects of adenoviruses on cells were changes in cell shape, such as becoming more rounded and having more pseudopodia; although the cells had new pseudopodia, they were unable to move. Affected cells divided more frequently and piled up on top of each other. Cells did not have the usual junctures between them. Some of these changes can occur naturally in a dividing cell, such as the more rounded shape.
- See more at: http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/virus-tricks-manipulate-the-cytoskeleton#sthash.GSwFgxpZ.dpuf

Who was Henrietta Lacks and her importance in sientific work?

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor black tobacco farmer whose cells—taken without her knowledge in 1951—became one of the most important tools in medicine, vital for developing the polio vaccine, cloning, gene mapping, and more. Henrietta's cells have been bought and sold by the billions, yet she remains virtually unknown, and her family can't afford health insurance. This phenomenal New York Times bestseller tells a riveting story of the collision between ethics, race, and medicine; of scientific discovery and faith healing; and of a daughter consumed with questions about the mother she never knew.

Henrietta Lacks was only 31 when she died of cervical cancer in 1951 in a Baltimore hospital. Not long before her death, doctors removed some of her tumor cells. They later discovered that the cells could thrive in a lab, a feat no human cells had achieved before.

Soon the cells, called HeLa cells, were being shipped from Baltimore around the world. In the 62 years since — twice as long as Ms. Lacks’s own life — her cells have been the subject of more than 74,000 studies, many of which have yielded profound insights into cell biology, vaccines, in vitro fertilization and cancer.

But Henrietta Lacks, who was poor, black and uneducated, never consented to her cells’ being studied. For 62 years, her family has been left out of the decision-making about that research. Now, over the past four months, the National institute of health has come to an agreement with the Lacks family to grant them some control over how Henrietta Lacks’s genome is used.

2013

“In 20 years at N.I.H., I can’t remember something like this,” Dr. Francis S. Collins, the institute’s director, said in an interview.

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Henrietta Lacks in the 1940s. Credit Lacks Family, via The Henrietta Lacks Foundation

The agreement, which does not provide the family with the right to potential earnings from future research on Ms. Lacks’s genome, was prompted by two projects to sequence the genome of HeLa cells, the second of which was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Though the agreement, which was announced Wednesday, is a milestone in the saga of Ms. Lacks, it also draws attention to a lack of policies to balance the benefits of studying genomes with the risks to the privacy of people whose genomes are studied — as well as their relatives.

As the journalist Rebecca slooks recounted in her 2010 best-seller, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” it was not until 1973, when a scientist called to ask for blood samples to study the genes her children had inherited from her, that Ms. Lacks’s family learned that their mother’s cells were, in effect, scattered across the planet.

Some members of the family tried to find more information. Some wanted a portion of the profits that companies were earning from research on HeLa cells. They were largely ignored for years.

Ms. Lacks is survived by children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, many still living in or around Baltimore.

And this March they experienced an intense feeling of déjà vu.

Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory published the genome of a line of HeLa cells, making it publicly available for downloading. Another study, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health at the University of Washington, was about to be published in Nature. The Lacks family was made aware of neither project
.

“I said, ‘No, this is not right,’ ” Jeri Lacks Whye, one of Henrietta Lacks’s grandchildren, said in an interview. “They should not have this up unless they have consent from the family.”

Officials at the National Institutes of Health now acknowledge that they should have contacted the Lacks family when researchers first applied for a grant to sequence the HeLa genome. They belatedly addressed the problem after the family raised its objections.

The European researchers took down their public data, and the publication of the University of Washington paper was stopped. Dr. Collins and Kathy L. Hudson, the National Institutes of Health deputy director for science, outreach and policy, made three trips to Baltimore to meet with the Lacks family to discuss the research and what to do about it.

“The biggest concern was privacy — what information was actually going to be out there about our grandmother, and what information they can obtain from her sequencing that will tell them about her children and grandchildren and going down the line,” Ms. Lacks Whye said.

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Differences between plant cells and animal cells?

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Plant cells vs. Animal cells(Differences)- 5 differences each.________________________________________________________________________

Plant cells:
                                                                  

plant cell image

1- Plants cells are usually larger in size.

2-It cannot change it's shape.

3-Plastids are present. Plant cells exposed to sunlight contain chloroplast.

4-A mature plant cell contains a large central vacuole

5-Nucleus lies on 1 side in the peripheral cytoplasm ...
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Animal cells:                                                                                                                                          

animal cell image

1-An animal cell is comparatively smaller in size.                      

2-An animal cell can often change it's shape.

3-Plastids are usually absent.

4-An animal cell often possesses many small vacuoles.

5-Nucleus usually lies in the center in the peripheral cytoplasm...

Plant and animal cells have several differences and similarities. For example, animal cells do not have a cell wall or chloroplasts but plant cells do. Animal cells are round and irregular in shape while plant cells have fixed, rectangular shapes.

Plant and animal cells are both eukaryotic cells, so they have several features in common, such as the presence of a cell membrane, and cell organelles, like the nucleus, mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum.

Cells are the building block of life. Plant cells can also be specialized with each cell having a specific tasks with the cells working together to ensure the survival of the plant.