• Question: is it possible for cells to mix together

    Asked by Philip to Callum, Gina, Katie, Michelle, Sam on 9 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Katie Howe

      Katie Howe answered on 9 Nov 2012:

      In sexual reproduction a sperm and egg cell mix together! In humans the egg and the sperm each contain 23 chromosomes and when they combine at fertilisation this leads to a baby with 46 chromosomes – so half the genetic information came from the dad’s sperm and half came from the mum’s egg.

    • Photo: Michelle Linterman

      Michelle Linterman answered on 9 Nov 2012:

      Most cells do not mix, but they certainly can in many situations. In the lab, scientists also mix (or fuse) cells together to create a new type of cell that can make antibodies in a plastic dish in the lab. Antibodies are molecules normally found in our blood that help us fight germs.

      The trick is to take a normal blood cell that makes antibodies, a B cell (you have thousands of these in your body), and fuse it with a cancer cell, making a cell that lives for a very long time in a plastic dish and makes antibodies. These newly made cells are called hybridomas, and are super useful in the lab to help with our experiments.

    • Photo: Sam Godfrey

      Sam Godfrey answered on 10 Nov 2012:

      Bacterial cells mix all the time, swapping bits and pieces of information with each other. Our cells don’t mix their information with each other much (but egg and sperm do, see Katie’s answer). However different types of cells do hang out with each other. Nerve cells like neurons are supported by lots of different types of cells called glia. And all your organs are made of many different types of cells all jumbled up with each other.

      Sam

    • Photo: Gina Tse

      Gina Tse answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      It depends what you mean by mix together. If you mean fuse together as one, then Katie, Michelle’s and Sam’s answers are spot on.

      In nature, in reproduction, a female and male gametes fuse together to create offspring.
      In our immune system we have cells called macrophages, these cells go around engulfing/eating any foreign bodies that shouldn’t be in our body such as bacteria or any fungi etc and stops them from causing us any harm.

      In terms of “unnatural” mixing, so cells which are forced together. This usually happens in the lab, such as Michelle explained in making antibodies.

      In cancer, the cell replicates uncontrollably and causes a tumour. There is a very rare form of cancer called teratoma, the genetic make up in the cell is so broken (imagine the notes of a song being jumbled up and played back to you) the cells will start to differentiate into other cell types, so what was previously a muscle cell now starts to become hair or teeth and so on! Very gory stuff!

Comments

  • Photo: Susanne

    Susanne commented on :

    Hi Philip,
    I just saw your question and I think that it is a funny coincidence that the work of a collegue dealt with that matter. So this is what I know about it:
    There was some excitement a few years ago when scientists discovered that blood cells can fuse with nerve cells (and other cells) in living mice! Which means that the mice had cells in their brains which before were two separate cells: a blood cell and a nerve cell. Later on more research showed that this only happenend under very special circumstances, so probably not in normal mice (or humans).