Figure 4.
Membrane voltage levels are not homogenous around the cell surface. Using the voltage-sensitive fluorescent dye DiBAC,168 early frog embryo blastomeres (A) as well as COS cells in monolayer culture (B) exhibit significant variations of membrane voltage level around the cell surface, indicating that a single Vmem number for a given cell drastically under-estimates the amount of information that can be encoded in the plasma membrane’s physiological state and potentially communicated to neighboring cells. Images courtesy of Dany S. Adams.