Rudimentary form of cellular "vision".

BHK cells were inoculated sparsely on one face ("sparse- or s-face") of a thin glass film whose opposite face was covered with a 2- to 3-day-old confluent layer of BHK cells ("confluent- or c-face"). After 7 hr of attaching and spreading in the absence of visible light, most of the cells on the s-face traversed with their long axes the direction of the whorls of the confluent cells on the c-face directly opposed. The effect was inhibited by a thin metal coating of the glass films. The results suggest that the cells were able to detect the orientation of others by signals that penetrated glass but not thin metallic films and, therefore, appeared to be carried by electromagnetic radiation. In contrast, the effect was not influenced by a thin coat of silicone on the glass, suggesting that the wavelength of this radiation is likely to be in the red to infrared range. The ability of cells to detect the direction of others by electromagnetic signals points to a rudimentary form of cellular "vision." IMAGES:

将BHK细胞（Baby Hamster Kidney Cells）稀疏接种于薄玻璃膜的一面（记为“稀疏接种面或s面”），该玻璃膜的另一面覆盖有2~3天龄的汇合态BHK细胞层（记为“汇合面或c面”）。在避光条件下经7小时黏附与铺展后，s面上的多数细胞的长轴均沿其正对的c面汇合细胞的涡旋方向排布。该细胞取向效应可被玻璃膜表面的薄金属涂层抑制。实验结果显示，细胞可通过穿透玻璃但无法穿透薄金属膜的信号感知其他细胞的取向，因此该信号推测由电磁辐射介导。与之相反，玻璃表面的薄有机硅涂层不会对该效应产生影响，这提示该辐射的波长大概率处于红光至红外波段范围内。细胞通过电磁信号感知其他细胞方位的能力，代表了一种原始的细胞“视觉”形式。图像数据集：