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INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE
OF BIOPHYSICS
Development
F.Musumeci
The group in the Developmental Biophysics Laboratory, Moscow State
University,extended and increased studies on the role of biophoton
emission in the development of embryos. In our studies
of a biophoton emission from the chicken embryos and eggs (performed in
the laboratory of the Biophotonen Firma, Kaiserslautern) we were able to
demonstrate the existence of two hierarchically coupled and non-additively
interacting biophoton emittors. The first one was the early chicken embryo
and the yolk (up to 4 incubation days). The photon emission from
the isolated embryos and yolks is only slightly light-dependent, strictly
temperature-dependent (it took place only under the normal incubation temperature)
and has a wave-length shorter than 300 nm. Another photon emittor is located
in the egg shell. It is largely light-dependent, shows
a certain temperature in the living eggs and (worth mentioning!) temperature-gradient
dependence and emits photons during the whole developmental period within a 600-800
nm range. The shell emission is stable only in the living eggs, otherwise
it declines rapidly. In the living eggs it is effectively regulated by the
developing embryos. In most cases, the shell emission hwas shown to
be stimulated by the egg constituents in 2 days incubation samples and
inhibited (sucked?) in 9 to 10 days samples.
Together with Dr. R. van Wijk from the Department of Cell and Molecular
Biology, University of Utrecht, we started to measure the biophoton emission
from the developing eggs and embryos of sea urchins and a claw frog, (xenopus
laevis). We measured UPE from sea urchin eggs (psammechinus miliaris from
the North Sea) prior to and immediately after fertilization, up to the 1st
cleavage division, from the developing eggs and embryos of a frog, xenopus
laevis, up to tadpole stage. Sea urchin eggs showed,
during the 1st cleavage cycle, two definite UPE outbursts, each one about
2-fold over the background and lasting for 10 to 15 min. The first of these
took place immediately after fertilization (in some experiments, a similar
outburst was detected in non-fertilized eggs, immediately after their placing
intosea water) while the second one directly preceded the 1st cleavage
. Xenopus laevis eggs and embryos at first
showed, in all cases, a typical post-illumination UPE decay,
lasting no less than an hour. Along with that, the cleaving eggs and
embryos demonstrated a pulsatorial UPE dynamic up to a gastrula stage,
the most pronounced pulses concentrating around 1 to 2 hour periods. In early
cleavage, these pulses roughly corresponded with the cell cycles, but due
to a lack of complete synchronicity in cleavage divisions within a batch,
such a correlation could not be considered as approved. Isolated egg membranes
also emitted photons, albeit with a lower rate than the embryos did. Embryos
killed by ethanole did not emit photons. Generally, up to a neurula stage
the average UPE rate came to a background but some outbursts (now probably
associated with the motile activity) could be registered in tadpoles as
well. The statistical evaluation of the results obtained
in X.laevis eggs and embryos indicated: (1) a permanent existence in the
living beings, contrary to the dead and control samples, of a small amount
of the registered impulses of a very high intensity (deviating from
the normal distribution patterns); (2) the existence of non-monotonous
(fluctuating) autocorrelation patterns.
We consider these results as more or less preliminary and
intend to continue these investigations. We also intend to start
investigations with the use of inhibitors and quiescents of the
biophoton emission in order to reveal the role of the latter phenomenon
in maintaining the normal developmental capacities of embryos.
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