Highly reactive, highly toxic, and yet we wouldn’t survive more than three minutes without it. #Oxygen, the fuel of our cells and tissues ⛽.
Our ambivalent relationship began 2.2 billion years ago when we had to bring a foreign organism on board 👽. Pre-eukaryotic cells opened the doors to an ancient bacterium and internally outsourced energy production using oxygen. #Endosymbiosis! What an evolutionary masterstroke 👑! The kick-start of opportunities. #Biodiversity exploded after the event of endosymbiosis 💥🦖🐡🦓🌴🦄💥.
But at a high price. Cells had to ramp up their defence mechanisms against the flailing forces of a strongly electro-negative element. So-called antioxidants have been roaming channels and surfaces of cells (and later tissues) ever since. Even today, the oxygen tension in our tissues and cellular organelles and compartments are tightly regulated. Stem cell niches are nearly anoxic, while pulmonary alveoli tolerate up to 16 % oxygen 😮.
And yet we bathe our cells in 20 % atmospheric oxygen under standard cell culture conditions and expect them to react as if they were still shielded by tissues and bodily fluids that keep the oxygen tension under surveillance 🤔❓.
Bear in mind that this could potentially be the factor that alters the results of your experiments 🧪☝️.
#CellCulture #OxygenTension #Evolution #LabExperiment
Author: asban