Letters to and from the Editor
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University of Minnesota
Montreal, Canada
Montreal, Canada
Tulane University
New Orleans 18, Louisiana
London, N.W. 3
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The Organization Cell*
A microcosm is the cell,Wherein so many wonders dwell,Where DNA sets rapid pace(Unless it meets with DNAse).From nucleus comes RNA,Bearing orders of the day:Ergastoplasmic membranes thrum(That's endoplasmic reticulum);The bubbles swell, and in the latticeOf the Golgi apparatus,Where quiet reigned, may now be seenProduction of a protein.What architect could plan so wellThe alpha helix, formed by cell?
The little mitochondrionKnows naught of dullard, or of don.It is so much preoccupiedWith things on the digestive side,With enzymes, particles, and juices:It shuns the psyche and the muses.And if the ases need a home,They find it in the lysosome.There catalytic enzymes breakDown food for cell nutrition's sake,While other enzymes serve as toolsTo synthesize new molecules.
But taken from its old milieu,A given cell just will not doThe job for which it first was rated,For which it differentiated.And if the cell's in vitro grown,It fast forgets what it has known:Despite past wishes of the fates,It soon dedifferentiates!Sic transit gloria of the past,It now becomes—a fibroblast!
Despite the wealth of DNATo guide the cell upon its way,It oft can exercise a choiceWhen body's needs are given voice.The early hemocytoblastHas mostly future, little past.It may emerge to make the fightAs phagocytic monocyte,Or if not hungry, finds its goalAs lymphocyte of mystic role.No less important daughters areThe polymorphonuclear.
So cells may yield to outer forceTo make them vary in their course.It's only at a certain place(Most often somewhere on the face),That skin-like cells invaginateTo make a lens at stunning rate.To prove that it is no mistake,One can the eyeball structure takeTo abdomen, and there the skinWill try to push new lenses in.
One must, of course, not denigrateThe simple cell—it holds our fate.We neither criticize nor carpWe're unequipped with angel's harp.We have not leered, with whisper hintedThat every cell's not soundly minted.
We would, however, merely state(The scientific hour grows late)That while the protozoon wellPerforms all functions in one cell,We higher forms oft feel the strainOf evolutionary gain.And cell with cell must interact,The tissues to retain intact.A single cell won't give the keyTo man's entire economy.
Arthur M. Silverstein
Footnotes
* In reply to I. N. DUBIN, "The Cell Theory," Perspect. Biol. Med., 6:150, 1962.
