> <i>With microscopy techniques, the group examined the structures further and determined that they are open channels through which organelles and membrane vesicles move from one cell to another. At that point it became clear that the membrane tubes were “a completely new mechanism of cell-cell communication,” Rustom explained.</i><p>Vesicles are like a message in a bottle, thrown out into the "sea" of our atmosphere. Or an email, and viruses are spam. Here, it's like cells create point-to-point communication - like using lasers to send ship-to-ship communications in space science fiction - to upload their vesicle-wrapped RNA messages securely from client to server. Or server to client, as immune cells show:<p>> <i>How exactly did the engineered stem cells rescue the mouse? First, they differentiated into immune cells called macrophages and traveled to the injured kidney tissues. Once there, the macrophages formed TNTs with injured cells and transferred lysosomes — tiny packages full of healthy enzymes — to the diseased cells, Cherqui explained. The diseased cells also sent their defective lysosomes back to the macrophages through the same channels.</i><p>This supports an economic cellular theory wherein not every cell in the body can create all of the molecular structures and components it needs to survive - but each cell can create some components in excess, so cells trade RNA and proteins as they need.<p>Previously on HN:<p>Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses. [0]<p>800 million viruses fall onto every square meter of Earth every day. They kill 20% of bacterial life every day. [1]<p>Video simulation of HIV infecting a cell and reproducing. [2]<p><pre><code> [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17005810
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16839636
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16982396</code></pre>
For the sake of curiosity, can anyone guess what the results would be of temporarily stopping the cellular bridging action (lacking a better term) in an organisim?