Leonard Rome's lab discovered an odd component of cells in the 1980s: Vaults | Hacker News Reader

Leonard Rome's lab discovered an odd component of cells in the 1980s: Vaults

science.org

70 pointsJPLeRouzic9 comments

This is really interesting. I wonder what other known cellular structures are left out of biology textbooks because their functions are unknown?

> We usually think of neurons as the only cells in our body that produce intelligent behavior by communicating in large networks. Neurons are constantly communicating with each other in the form of electrical patterns on their membrane and neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that transfer messages between cells. But it turns out that cells throughout the body have the exact same building blocks for such communication. They do the same communication, but slower. Levin and company call this the bioelectric network, as distinguished from a neural network.

https://www.bitsofwonder.co/p/a-revolution-in-biology

I’m begging everyone on HN to understand that Michael Levin’s work is not the beginning and end of biology. This is not meant to disparage his research, it’s really quite cool, but bioelectric signaling is just one piece of a very complex, very large, and very interesting story.

I only say this because he is invariably mentioned in any story related to biological research. I think this is partially because his work is cool, he has been on Lex Fridman’s podcast several times, and he’s very good at talking about his research. So, again, not knocking his work, just don’t forget there’s a lot more bio research out there that’s equally interesting.

Can I get some links please? Interested in what's out there too.

Also what other structures are left out because they haven't been discovered because staining techniques don't make them visible? The dark matter of biology, is anyone even trying to look for such things? Though you would think electron microscopy would reveal everything.

Everything I read in the article makes it sound like vaults are part of the immune system, but nobody understands how they work. It seems really weird that there can be a major structure in a cell "thousands in some cells" and research has not found what role they play after decades. Probably a noble prize waiting here.

They knocked out the vaults in experiments, but did they then challenge the vault-deprived mice with viruses or did the mice live in an isolated environment to keep them away from confounders? If you remove part of the immune system and there are no immune challenges then it would seem like that part of the system does nothing. The environment matters a lot in such experiments.

>;they haven't been discovered because staining techniques don't make them visible?

To that point, there was a recent article here (that, sadly went mostly unnoticed), about Polish scientists finding novel applicability of gold particles of a certain shape in cancer treatment ...

... but crucial and structural to their findings (and salient about the article, I thought) was the use of a novel kind of microscopy and procedure that enabled the discovery itself. Worth reading ...

Found the article. Interesting:

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40819854

Harold Edgerton was a mechanical engineer trying to analyze a vibrating drive shaft. He finally took strobe photos of it vibrating. His advisor told him, never mind the drive shaft, start working on strobe photography.

Interesting read. From what I can tell, it seems to provide gain control for the innate immune system?

[0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11033-024-09305-y

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