Magnetic Orientation in Biology:. Virus Structure - Blood Clot Assembly - Cell Guidance

Our childhood games with permanent magnets leave us with the impression that matter, in general, does not respond to a magnetic field. In reality, virtually everything is subjected to minute forces of attraction, repulsion or orientation. Strong fields combined with better understanding allow us to exploit these effects to tackle biological problems. In particular, the very weak diamagnetic anisotropy associated with individual molecules can give rise to high orientation of well organized structures such as crystals, liquid-crystals, semi-rigid polymers and individual cells. High orientation is often accompanied by better data and superior properties. In some circumstances, such as in crystallization, the orientating torque might induce effects over and above simple orientation. Magnetic field orientation has a number of advantages over other orienting techniques. Drawing or spinning produce fibers and can alter structure or cause damage while template methods invariable work only over a short range. The application of an electric field can cause heating and electrophoresis. In contrast, a magnetic field acts at a distance allowing uniform orientation in bulk and the creation of composites with components having different orientations.

The contribution that magnetic orientation has made to a range of biological topics is illustrated by briefly describing a number of examples. For example, it has been a boon to x-ray studies of some non-crystalline filamentous complexes (e.g. fibrin, actin, microtubules, bacterial flagella and filamentous viruses) and is being vigorously exploited in NMR. The blood-clot polymer, fibrin, forms highly oriented gels when polymerized in a strong field and a number of its properties have been elucidated as a result. Magnetically oriented scaffolds of collagen, the major connective tissue protein, and fibrin are being used to study cell contact guidance. Oriented biomaterials might eventually be incorporated into specialized wound dressings, for example, to direct nerve repair.