Neurodegenerative diseases, infectious pathologies and liquid crystals: Hypothesis of a common information vector involving a multidisciplinary approach

The involvement of liquid crystals in multichannel implanted neurostimulators, hearing and ENT infections, and cancer

Liquid crystals (LCs) consist of assemblies of molecules, between one and tens of nanometers, grouped in identifiable cohorts according to orientation and structure, which is often lamellar with varying chirality. The term liquid phase (Lo phase) designates certain such mesophases. This variety in geometry corresponds to a variety of functions. Some molecules, both organic and inorganic, used in applied engineering, and association with LCs confer new properties. Applying these aspects of LCs in manufacturing implantable material is a growing technology, especially in the interfaces of differentiated multichannel electro-neurostimulation. We highlight the involvement of LCs in the head and neck region, and the role mesophases play in outer hair cell electromotility (mechanotransduction). We summarize implications of LCs this for multichannel electroneurostimulation implant engineering, and highlight their role importance of LCs in early oncogenic process, HPV, and latency in (Epstein-Barr) and other pathogens. Our approach should help give rise to new therapeutic perspectives. Focusing on upstream nanometric phenomena needs to take on board classic determinism, quantum probability, and statistical complexity.

Oncogenesis, lipids rafts and liquid crystals: A nanoscopic supplementary field for applied researches and a new hope of advances in cancer

Liquid crystals (LC) are an intermediate state between an ordered crystalline solid and a more disordered liquid. LCs (or mesophases) are ubiquitous in living systems, optimizing multiple biological functions that could not operate in purely solid or liquid environments as both mobility and organization are needed. One of us recently suggested that there is an information vector, shared by neurodegenerative and infectious pathologies, to be found within lipid rafts in an ordered liquid (Lo) form mediated by cholesterol. Here we extend this underlying mechanism to oncogenic processes. The specificity of our approach lies in highlighting the direct involvement of liquid crystals in early carcinogenic processes, by identifying specific metabolic pathways, with the intention of focusing research effort on this level, now that this has become technically feasible. Exploring LCs in living bodies reveals links between numerous oncogenic mechanisms. The approach is based on the geometric properties of amphiphilic (hydrophilic and lipophilic) plasma and intracellular membranes, the phospholipids of which are an example of the lamellar LC phase. These LCs underlie cell signaling and signaling pathways disorders at membrane level: consequently, they are directly concerned with deregulation underlying many cancerous processes. We demonstrate the implication of cancer cell membranes mesophases. That is in the membranes mesophases that are initiated most of metabolic pathways, leading to downstream pathogenic intracellular mechanisms. The concepts of order and of symmetry, in the mathematical sense, involved in condensed matter accompany informed adaptive supramolecular chemical processes in forming self-organizing mesogenic molecular assemblies. Multidisciplinary teamwork combining knowledge from different fields holds out the hope of therapeutic progress upstream of irreversible cancerous processes, while conserving the physiological integrity of the cells themselves.