Cytoplasmic Control of Cell Adhesion
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
Cell adhesion involves receptor-mediated cell-surface interactions with various immobilized extracellular “ligands” present either on the surface of neighboring cells or on extracellular matrix networks. These interactions play a central role in cytoskeletal organization and tissue morphogenesis as well as in cell motility, growth, and differentiation (Vasiliev and Gelfand 1981; Edelman et al. 1990; Ben-Ze'ev 1991; Takeichi 1991). These short- and long-range effects are especially prominent in adherens-type junctions (AJ), a class of cell adhesions that are associated with the microfilament system through an elaborate network of interconnecting anchor molecules (Geiger 1982, 1989; Geiger et al. 1985, 1990; Geiger and Ginsberg 1991). During the last decade, many AJ constituents were discovered and shown to segregate into three major subcellular domains. The junctional receptors are transmembrane polypeptides belonging either to the integrin family, in extracellular matrix adhesions (Hynes 1987, 1992), or to the cadherin family, in cell-cell contacts (Takeichi 1988, 1990, 1991;...
