Spontaneous signal generation in living cells.

Living cells often generate signals spontaneously in the absence of external stimuli. Those signals play an important role in their tactic behaviors. This paper presents a theoretical treatment on the mechanism of spontaneous signal generation. The mechanism consists of two steps: (1) production of the basic fluctuation of the intracellular electric potential due to the open-closed fluctuation of the gates of ion channels and (2) generation of a spike-like fluctuation of potential depending on the positive shift of the basic fluctuation. The first step is described by an equation of the Langevin type, where the random force is proportional to the circulating ion current across the membrane; the average of the square of the random force is proportional to the rate of free-energy consumption by the current. The second step is described by a rate equation of transition of field-sensitive channel gates which contains the fluctuating electric field in the exponential term. There, the fluctuation has a nonlinear effect. Such a two-step process may work in various kinds of living cells. The presence of circulating ion current in the resting state is a most important key. Some cells may be quiet and some cells may be active to generate spontaneous signals.