Question

Discuss how defects in cell to cell communication may lead to human diseases. Be sure to include citations from the scientific literature to support your posts.

Answer 1

Cell cell communication is very crucial for the survival of the cell (Bassler, Bonnie L. "Small talk: cell-to-cell communication in bacteria." Cell 109.4 (2002): 421-424.), in case of any defect in this communication due to number of factors ,including disturbance of cell homeostasis as a result of excessive production of reactive oxygen species (free radicals), alteration in enzymatic (SOD and CAT) or non enzymatic markers (LPO or GSH content) may lead to other defect to the cells. When cell unable to repair this damage then it follow cell death pathways through programmed cell death (good way to die or benign type, apoptosis) or un-programmed sudden cell death (necrosis, bad way to die). Cells are having varied group of proteins which is known as cell receptors, which bind to the messenger molecules (signaling molecules) and perform the physiological response, these receptors are having specificity to the group of molecules, for example dopamine receptor can bind dopamine whereas insulin receptors are inclusive for insulin only. These defects cause several metabolic diseases including diabetes (Antonetti, David A., et al. "Diabetic retinopathy: seeing beyond glucose-induced microvascular disease." Diabetes 55.9 (2006): 2401-2411) and cancers (Trosko, James E., and Randall J. Ruch. "Cell-cell communication in carcinogenesis." Front Biosci 3.3 (1998): d208-236.).