ULTIMATE COMPUTING - Quantum Consciousness Studies

Cytoskeleton/Cytocomputer 83
Figure 5.3: Schematic of cellular cytoskeleton/membrane. M: cell membrane,
MP: membrane protein, GP: glycoprotein extending into extra-cellular space, MT:
microtubules, MF: microfilaments (actin filaments or intermediate filaments), MTL:
microtrabecular lattice. Cytoskeletal proteins which connect MT and membrane
proteins include spectrin, fodrin, ankyrin, and others. By Fred Anderson.
Fischer and Hardy (1899) showed that the new fixatives and stains induced
artificial coagulation of gelatin, egg albumin, and other proteins. The coagulation
gave rise to beautiful reticular and fibrillar formations and even produced
strikingly real, but phoney mitotic spindles! These studies discouraged support for
the fibrillar and reticular theories to the extent that many cytologists denied that
meshworks seen in fixed material had any validity in the living cell. Butschli
added his alveolar foam theory of cytoplasmic structure, claiming that the
reticular appearance seen in fixed materials and sometimes in living cells resulted
from a honeycomb of vacuoles of one substance crowded together in a continuous
phase of another. This theory died because it failed to account for the fixation
observations and because vacuolated cytoplasm was uncommon. Meanwhile,
observations of true fibrillar formation in living cells were accumulating. The use
of polarized light microscopy revealed “birefringent” submicroscopic rods in the
cytoplasm of muscle, nerve, sperm, and spindles of dividing cells. Biologists
began to consider cytoplasm as a “gel,” in which rod-shaped filaments formed
cross linkages. Gel aptly describes the mechanical properties of cytoplasm: an
elastic intermeshing of linear crystalline units giving elasticity and rigidity to a
fluid while allowing it to flow.
The protoplasmic rods revealed by birefringence in polarized microscopy
were thought to be proteins, or linear aggregates of proteins, which were held
together by hydrogen bonding. Seifriz concluded that the fibrillar “artifacts”
produced in cells or protein solutions upon fixation were significant. He
suggested that the relatively coarse microscopic threads in fixed materials may be
artifactually produced aggregates of important submicroscopic threads, probably
linear proteins. To account for the elastic and tensile properties of cytoplasm,