**19. Acknowledgements**

I would like to thank Annabel Hancock for supplying the music used in Figure 6.

### **20. References**

66 Biomedical Science, Engineering and Technology

phosphorylation sites and some in truncated form. Good examples are phosphatase proteins

Musical instruments also evolve, and in many ways in a similar manner to proteins. Some have certainly been around for a long time, but even those that form part of current orchestrates are different from those used by great composers such as Mozart. Furthermore he would never have imagined the possibility of an electric violin, but today his music is often played on such an instrument. Music itself evolves, with successive composers

Instruments have changed over the years in a way that resembles that of proteins. Protein isoforms can be created when a gene is copied so there are two versions, and then those genes mutate after a period of time to two separate genes which are able to be characterised, and they would give rise to different but related proteins. Musical instruments are the same. A violin is like a copy of a viola, except one is bigger and plays different notes. Copy it again and make it bigger still and a cello is created, and so on so there is a family of instruments which are recognisable as being related, and yet they have different roles. They could be thought of as isoforms perhaps, just like proteins. Using the piano as an example and again one can see "isoforms" which are all recognisable as pianos, that is the concert grand, the baby grand, the upright, the studio piano and so on. Over the years the piano has been adapted to the place it needs to be placed and the audience it is aimed at. There have formats which are no longer seen, like genes which have disappeared during evolution, and there are new versions being developed and used. There now seems to be a vast array of electric pianos and electronic keyboards, with the idea of using a piano keyboard layout

Music and the instruments used to create it will continue to develop and evolve, just as the proteins which are involved in cell signalling. Especially in the advance of climate change, organisms will need to adapt and it will be cell signalling which coordinates such changes, but the signalling pathways will change too. The future will see the development of new cellular components, and no doubt new musical instruments, especially as new digital technologies are adopted. Not all changes will be beneficial, with mutations in genes no only allowing the future evolution of species but creating dysfunctional proteins along the way causing disease in individuals. No doubt not all new music innovations will be successful either, and the future will be littered with new proteins and musical instruments abandoned

Cell signalling is both enormously important to the understanding of how cells works and immensely complicated. Therefore ideas which can be used to aid in the teaching and study of the subject would be extremely helpful, and an analogy is often a good tool. Music initiates cell signalling events in organisms, but music terminologies are often used to explain aspects of cell signalling. However, music as an analogy for cell signalling events can be an interesting and useful way to look at the principles of signalling and transduction pathways. Such an analogy will be useful to those teaching and studying cell signalling.

I would like to thank Annabel Hancock for supplying the music used in Figure 6.

that remove the phosphate groups from proteins (Cohen *et al.,* 1990).

building on the work of those who went before them.

being copied and mutated to develop new instruments.

by nature and the music industry respectively.

**18. Conclusion** 

**19. Acknowledgements** 

