Dancing in a cell

Cell biologists are marveling at what looks like a well-choreographed dance among the microscopic structures housed within living cells. Thirty years ago, scientists believed this cellular tango was incidental. But now, more advanced imaging techniques reveal this rhythmic motion serves a vital purpose that “shouts design,” Ann Gauger, a biologist and researcher at the Biologic Institute, told me.

Scientists once thought the structures within cells, called organelles, were isolated and independent from one another, each performing its own special function. But a report published on March 11 in Nature on technological advances in microscopy have given biologists a look into the highly complex activity within cells. Organelles slide together, bind for a short time, separate, and then reconnect to exchange calcium, hydrogen peroxide, sugars, and other compounds necessary to keep the cell healthy. They also facilitate the transfer of cholesterol and other fatty molecules that would otherwise form beads and plug up the liquid cytoplasm in the cell. The organelles can even reroute the transportation system and come in through the back door if another passage gets plugged. But if those links break, the resulting cellular dysfunction can lead to cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and other disorders.

Gökhan Hotamisligil, a metabolic disease researcher at Harvard University, likened the process to a dynamic flamenco performance. Gia Voeltz, a University of Colorado cell biologist, said when she showed videos of this cellular motion to colleagues, they were in awe that everything inside the cell was “so integrated and beautiful.”

Researchers now know that these dances occur everywhere within the cell. Almost every type of organelle comes into close communication with every other type. The discovery shows that an organelle cannot function in isolation, said Maya Schuldiner, a Weizmann Institute biologist.

“This implies that all the required organelles … must have originated at the same time,” wrote Brian Thomas, an Institute for Creation Research biochemist.

Laura Lackner, a cell biologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., told Nature, “It really seems like this is some sort of functional hub that the cell has created.”

But cells don’t create anything, Thomas noted, pointing out that that one can align pieces of a car—pistons, spark plugs, radiator, and all engine parts—in the right place but, unless someone puts them together, all you have is scrap metal. “Nobody has seen a cell create its own parts any more than a car engine does,” he said. “These partnering dances in cells demand supernatural beginnings.”