Inflammatory signaling

Most cells monitor the presence of pathogens via the biomolecules covering the micro-organisms. When alarmed to a dangerous level of bacteria, they turn on one form of death program and puncture the membrane. This causes significant leakage of nutrients and important proteins as alert messages to improve defenses in neighboring cells, but effectively causes these cells to “bleed to death”.

Counter-intuitively, this is reversible. Each "lightning-strike" event seen here is the temporary, self-stemming flow of ions from the cell. We are studying why this necessary, but dangerous, process evolved to have such a robust Off-switch. Knowing how to activate these switches will be useful in preventing inflammatory damage, or vice versa cause damage in cells that are no longer useful.