Scientists were able to "herd" cells using an electric current.
The finding could lead to a more controlled technique for tissue engineering and even "smart bandages," a University of California, Berkeley news release reported.
The team used a thin layer of epithelial cells (cells that bind together in organs such as the skin and liver) and applied an electric current of five volts per centimeter. They found this caused the cells to move along the electric current. They were able to "herd" the cells in any direction they wanted to.
"This is the first data showing that direct current fields can be used to deliberately guide migration of a sheet of epithelial cells," study lead author Daniel Cohen, a student in the UC Berkeley-UC San Francisco Joint Graduate Program in Bioengineering, said in the news release. "There are many natural systems whose properties and behaviors arise from interactions across large numbers of individual parts - sand dunes, flocks of birds, schools of fish, and even the cells in our tissues. Just as a few sheepdogs exert enormous control over the herding behavior of sheep, we might be able to similarly herd biological cells for tissue engineering."
The use of electricity to direct cell movement, dubbed Galvanotaxis, has been demonstrated in the past on individual cells, but how it affects a cell group has not been shown until now.
"The ability to govern the movement of a mass of cells has great utility as a scientific tool in tissue engineering," study senior author Michel Maharbiz, UC Berkeley associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, said in the news release. "Instead of manipulating one cell at a time, we could develop a few simple design rules that would provide a global cue to control a collection of cells."
The human body is teeming with ions and salt solutions so it makes sense that electrical currents would be a key factor in human physiology.
"The electrical phenomenon we are exploring is distinct in that the current produced is providing a cue for cells to migrate," Maharbiz said.
"These data clearly demonstrate that the kind of cellular control we would need for a smart bandage might be possible, and the next part of our work will focus on adapting this technology for use in actual injuries," Cohen said.
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