Terminal Differentiation of Epithelia
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Q. Al-Awqati
Abstract
All epithelia form sheets of cells connected by tight and adherent junctions and exhibit polarized distribution of membrane proteins and lipids. During their development, epithelia progress from this 'generic' phenotype to terminally differentiated states characterized by the development of apical structures such as microvilli, apical endocytosis and regulated exocytosis as well as characteristic cell shapes. We have identified an extracellular matrix protein, hensin, which when polymerized into a fiber induces the terminal differentiation of renal cells. Hensin is expressed in most epithelia where it exists in tissuespecific alternately spliced forms. Many epithelial tumors have deletions in the human ortholog of hensin. We propose that hensin mediates terminal differentiation of these epithelia.
Copyright © 2003 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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Articles in the same Issue
- Paper of the Year 2002
- Terminal Differentiation of Epithelia
- Use of Detergents to Study Membrane Rafts: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
- Protein Structure Similarity as Guiding Principle for Combinatorial Library Design
- The Making of a Professional Secretory Cell: Architectural and Functional Changes in the ER during B Lymphocyte Plasma Cell Differentiation
- No Superoxide Dismutase Activity of Cellular Prion Protein in vivo
- A Nucleosome-Free dG-dC-Rich Sequence Element Promotes Constitutive Transcription of the Essential Yeast RIO1 Gene
- Phosphatidylinositol-3,5-Bisphosphate Is a Potent and Selective Inhibitor of Acid Sphingomyelinase
- Function and Structure of N-Terminal and C-Terminal Domains of Calcineurin B Subunit
- Verification of the Interaction of a Tryparedoxin Peroxidase with Tryparedoxin by ESI-MS/MS
- Kinin-B1 Receptors in Ischaemia-Induced Pancreatitis: Functional Importance and Cellular Localisation
- Bioactivatable, Membrane-Permeant Analogs of Cyclic Nucleotides as Biological Tools for Growth Control of C6 Glioma Cells
- Human Cathepsin H: Deletion of the Mini-Chain Switches Substrate Specificity from Aminopeptidase to Endopeptidase
- Nitridergic Platelet Pathway Activation by Hementerin, a Metalloprotease from the Leech Haementeria depressa
