Study of Spontaneous Electrical Low-frequency Oscillations and Morphology of Mycelium Grown in Thermal Polypetide Media
Davin Browner, Panagiotis Moukogiannis and Andrew Adamatzky
Fungi have existed on earth for at least hundreds of millions of years suggesting that mats and networks of mycelium could have formed an early source of protocognitive activity. Amino acids are a fungal cell wall permeable source of nutrition for many present day fungi and this relationship may have been initiated in certain early earth conditions fuelling metabolic processes that could not occur otherwise. Particular kinds of peptides called thermal proteins or proteinoids could have played an important role in this geological period due to their assembly at high temperatures (150+◦C) and ability to form electrical junctions with biological organisms via attachment of microspheres. In artificial cultures proteinoids could be used as a method to interface with intracellular and extracellular electrophysiology. To investigate these conditions and the resulting dynamics of electrical signaling, we studied the characteristics of an in-vitro culture of mycelium cultivated with proteinoids. Scanning electron micrographs show growth of the basidiomycete Schizophyllum commune with proteinoid microspheres attached to hyphae suggesting that this fungal species grows successfully in proteinoid solution. Further, we show evidence for the existence of integration of electrical signaling between the abiotic peptides and fungus in via analysis of the spontaneous low frequency extracellular oscillations.