Bioelectric memory: modeling resting potential bistability in amphibian embryos and mammalian cells

Bioelectric memory: modeling resting potential bistability in amphibian embryos and mammalian cells Law and Levin Law and Levin Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling (2015) 12:22 DOI 10.1186/s12976-015-0019-9 Law and Levin Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling (2015) 12:22 DOI 10.1186/s12976-015-0019-9 RESEARCH Open Access Bioelectric memory: modeling resting potential bistability in amphibian embryos and mammalian cells Robert Law1 and Michael Levin2* * Correspondence: 2 Department of Biology and Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology, Tufts University, 200 Boston Avenue, Medford, MA 02155, USA Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Abstract Background: Bioelectric gradients among all cells, not just within excitable nerve and muscle, play instructive roles in developmental and regenerative pattern formation. Plasma membrane resting potential gradients regulate cell behaviors by regulating downstream transcriptional and epigenetic events. Unlike neurons, which fire rapidly and typically return to the same polarized state, developmental bioelectric signaling involves many cell types stably maintaining various levels of resting potential during morphogenetic events. It is important to begin to quantitatively model the stability of bioelectric states in cells, to understand computation and pattern maintenance during regeneration and remodeling. Method: To facilitate the analysis of endogenous bioelectric signaling and the exploitation of voltage-based cellular controls in synthetic bioengineering applications, we sought to understand the conditions under which somatic cells can stably maintain distinct resting potential values (a type of state memory). Using the Channelpedia ion channel database, we generated an array of amphibian oocyte and mammalian membrane models for voltage evolution. These models were analyzed and searched, by simulation, for a simple dynamical property, multistability, which forms a type of voltage memory. Results: We find that typical mammalian models and amphibian oocyte models exhibit bistability when expressing different ion channel subsets, with either persistent sodium or inward-rectifying potassium, respectively, playing a facilitative role in bistable memory formation. We illustrate this difference using fast sodium channel dynamics for which a comprehensive theory exists, where the same model exhibits bistability under mammalian conditions but not amphibian conditions. In amphibians, potassium channels from the Kv1.x and Kv2.x families tend to disrupt this bistable memory formation. We also identify some common principles under which physiological memory emerges, which suggest specific strategies for implementing memories in bioengineering contexts. Conclusion: Our results reveal conditions under which cells can stably maintain one of several resting voltage potential values. These models suggest testable predictions for experiments in developmental bioelectricity, and illustrate how cells can be used as versatile physiological memory elements in synthetic biology, and unconventional computation contexts. Keywords: Computational, Bistability, Bioelectric, Ion channels, Resting potential, Memory, Ion flux, Modeling, Xenopus © 2016 Law and Levin. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Law and Levin Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling (2015) 12:22 Introduction Overview It is well appreciated that the nervous system implements memory and information processing via electrical communication among its cells. However, bioelectric signaling is not restricted to excitable cells [1, 2]. It has long been known that all kinds of cells both generate and are sensitive to ion currents and electric fields [3–7], using some of the same ion channels and electrical synapses exploited by the CNS, but functioning on a much slower timescale. Recent data have shown that cellular resting potentials control cell behaviors such as proliferation, differentiation, and migration [8–13]. Moreover, spatio-temporal gradients of resting potential (Vmem) are instructive, endogenous regulators of pattern formation in vivo, involved in oogenesis [14, 15], craniofacial patterning [16], left-right asymmetry [17–19], brain development [20], control of innervation [21], eye formation [22, 23], carcinogenesis/metastasis [24–26], regenerative polarity [27], and size control [28]. Manipulation of stable bioelectric states has enabled control of stem cell function [29–31], induction of large-scale regenerative repair [32, 33], and organ-level reprogramming in vivo [23]. Bioelectric gradients control morphogenetic events, regulating cell behavior via changes in downstream gene expression and chromatin state [34, 35]. This occurs via several known transducer mechanisms that convert changes in resting potential to second messenger and ultimately transcriptional responses. The voltage gradients themselves are regulated by two upstream pathways [36]. One is the variable expression of ion channels within cells. However, there is another way for gradients to be established, which does not require pre-existing transcriptional drivers. Significant spatio-temporal changes in cell voltage distributions can occur without changes in ion channel protein or mRNA levels. This is because ion channels are gated post-translationally: existing channels can open or close due to various physiological signals, even when the transcriptome and proteome had not changed. While this is an unexpected situation in a developmental or cell biology context, it is commonplace in neuroscience, since neural networks conduct spiking dynamics purely based on the physics of ion channel activity. Action potentials do not require regulation of channel expression and networks can conduct complex electrical behavior purely at a physiological level invisible to analysis of protein or mRNA levels. Much as occurs in the brain, non-neural cells can regulate their voltage potentials by post-translational gating of channels. The gating is driven by a range of physiological events, of which perhaps the most fascinating is cell membrane potential itself. Because channels are both gated by, and determine, resting potential, this situation opens the possibility of complex regulatory feedback loops with non-obvious behavior. Understanding such bioelectric dynamics would facilitate the construction of comprehensive models o (...truncated)