Why is cell communication important in the human body? Havier Green Mhalia Jones

Cell Communication Cells communicate by sending and receiving signals. Signals may come from the environment, or they may come from other cells. In order to trigger a response, these signals must be transmitted across the cell membrane. Sometimes the signal itself can cross the membrane.

If cell communication goes wrong… When signal is lost The food that you eat is broken down into sugar, which enters the blood stream. Normally, cells in the pancreas release a signal, called insulin, that tells your liver, muscle and fat cells to store this sugar for later use. In type I diabetes, the pancreatic cells that produce insulin are lost. Consequently, the insulin signal is also lost. As a result, sugar accumulates to toxic levels in the blood. Without treatment, diabetes can lead to kidney failure, blindness and heart disease in later life.

If cell communication goes wrong cont… When Signal does not reach its target Multiple sclerosis is a disease in which the protective wrappings around nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are destroyed. The affected nerve cells can no longer transmit signals from one area of the brain to another. Treatment Just as cell communication can go wrong resulting in disease, many disease treatments rely on cell communication.

Quorum sensing quorum sensing, allows bacteria to monitor the environment for other bacteria and to alter behavior on a population-wide scale in response to changes in the number species present in a community. Most quorum-sensing-controlled processes are unproductive when undertaken by an individual bacterium acting alone but become beneficial when carried out simultaneously by a large number of cells.

However, recently it was found that bacteria usually coordinate their behaviors at the population level by producing (speaking), sensing (listening), and responding to small signal molecules.

Just as cell communication can go wrong resulting in disease, many disease treatments rely on cell communication.