Simulated pulse response of intracellular structures in biological cells exposed to high-intensity sub-microsecond pulsed electric fields

Cell response to sub-microsecond pulsed electric fields (sm-PEF) is examined using an equivalent circuit model (ECM) where a network of electrical components is used to represent the cell environment and the cell with its internal structures. The model is evaluated by comparing results with published data from other numerical studies. It is shown that the model, which is not computationally demanding, may be usefully adopted to examine cell and organelle response in vitro, and where the applied pulse shape and frequency spectrum may be of significance

Non-coding RNAs: the architects of eukaryotic complexity

Around 98% of all transcriptional output in humans is non-coding RNA. RNA-mediated gene regulation is widespread in higher eukaryotes and complex genetic phenomena like RNA interference, co-suppression, transgene silencing, imprinting, methylation, and possibly position-effect variegation and transvection, all involve intersecting pathways based on or connected to RNA signaling. I suggest that the central dogma is incomplete, and that intronic and other non-coding RNAs have evolved to comprise a second tier of gene expression in eukaryotes, which enables the integration and networking of complex suites of gene activity. Although proteins are the fundamental effectors of cellular function, the basis of eukaryotic complexity and phenotypic variation may lie primarily in a control architecture composed of a highly parallel system of trans-acting RNAs that relay state information required for the coordination and modulation of gene expression, via chromatin remodeling, RNA–DNA, RNA–RNA and RNA–protein interactions. This system has interesting and perhaps informative analogies with small world networks and dataflow computing