Jump to content
  • Human cells hacked to act like squid skin cells could unlock key to camouflage

    Karlston

    • 160 views
    • 5 minutes
     Share


    • 160 views
    • 5 minutes

    It's not possible to culture squid skin cells in the lab; this approach provides a solution.

     

    Certain cephalopods like cuttlefish, octopuses, and squid have the ability to camouflage themselves by making themselves transparent and/or changing their colouration. Scientists would like to learn more about the precise mechanisms underlying this unique ability, but it's not possible to culture squid skin cells in the lab. Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have discovered a viable solution: replicating the properties of squid skin cells in mammalian (human) cells in the lab. They presented their research at a meeting of the American Chemical Society being held this week in Indianapolis.

     

    "In general, there's two ways you can achieve transparency," UC Irvine's Alon Gorodetsky, who has been fascinated by squid camouflage for the last decade or so, said during a media briefingat the ACS meeting. "One way is by reducing how much light is absorbed—pigment-based colouration, typically. Another way is by changing how light is scattered, typically by modifying differences in the refractive index." The latter is the focus of his lab's research.

     

    Squid skin is translucent and features an outer layer of pigment cells called chromatophoresthat control light absorption. Each chromatophore is attached to muscle fibres that line the skin's surface, and those fibres, in turn, are connected to a nerve fibre. It's a simple matter to stimulate those nerves with electrical pulses, causing the muscles to contract. And because the muscles pull in different directions, the cell expands, along with the pigmented areas, which changes the colour. When the cell shrinks, so do the pigmented areas.

     

    squidskin3-640x237.jpg

    In 2015, Alon Gorodetsky's lab at UC Irvine created "invisibility stickers" with squid reflectin proteins.
    YouTube/American Chemical Society

     

    Underneath the chromatophores, there is a separate layer of iridophores. Unlike the chromatophores, the iridophores aren't pigment-based but are an example of structural colour, similar to the crystals in the wings of a butterfly, except a squid's iridophores are dynamic rather than static. They can be tuned to reflect different wavelengths of light. A 2012 papersuggested that this dynamically tunable structural colour of the iridophores is linked to a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. The two layers work together to generate the unique optical properties of squid skin.

     

    And then there are leucophores, similar to the iridophores except they scatter the full spectrum of light, such that they appear white. They contain reflectin proteins that typically clump together into nanoparticles, so that light scatters instead of being absorbed or directly transmitted. Leucophores are mostly found in cuttlefish and octopuses, but there are some female squid of the genus Sepioteuthis that have leucophores that they can 'tune" to only scatter certain wavelengths of light. If the cells allow light through with little scattering, they’ll seem more transparent, while the cells become opaque and more apparent by scattering a lot more light. These are the cells that interest Gorodetsky.

     

     

    Human cells hacked to act like squid skin cells could unlock key to camouflage


    User Feedback

    Recommended Comments

    There are no comments to display.



    Join the conversation

    You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
    Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

    Guest
    Add a comment...

    ×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

      Only 75 emoji are allowed.

    ×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

    ×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

    ×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...