Measurement of Electrical Oscillations and Mechanical Vibrations of Yeast Cells Membrane Around 1 kHz

Abstract

Fröhlich postulated coherent polar oscillations as a fundamental biophysical property of biological systems. Recently, Pelling et al. (2004, 2005) detected mechanical vibrations of yeast cell membrane with atomic force microscope (AFM) and analyzed by Fourier analysis in the frequency range 0.5–2 kHz with amplitudes of the order of 1 nm. This article describes the measurement of electric activity of yeast cells in the acoustic frequency range and of mechanical vibrations of cell membrane. Spectrum analyzer and electrically and electromagnetically screened box with point sensor and amplifiers fed by batteries were used for measurement of synchronized and non synchronized tubulin mutants of yeast cells. We show that the electric activity of synchronized cells in the M phase is greater that of non synchronized cells. That corresponds to the findings of Pohl et al. (1981). Obtained results of measurement of cell electric activity are in good agreement with AFM findings.

Keywords:

• Electromagnetic activity of cells
• Fröhlich's hypothesis of coherence in biology
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae
• Detection of very weak signals