Epithelial junctions, cytoskeleton, and polarity.

A distinctive feature of polarized epithelial cells is their specialized junctions, which contribute to cell integrity and provide platforms to orchestrate cell shape changes. This chapter discusses the composition, assembly and remodeling of C. elegans cell-cell (CeAJ) and hemidesmosome-like cell-extracellular matrix junctions (CeHD), proteins that anchor the cytoskeleton, and mechanisms involved in establishing epithelial polarity. Major recent progress in this area has come from the analysis of mechanisms that maintain cell polarity, which involve lipids and trafficking, and on the impact of mechanical forces on junction remodeling. This chapter focuses on cellular, rather than developmental, aspects of epithelial cells.

• Publication year

  2014

• Venue

  WormBook

• Publication date

  2014-11-04

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1895/wormbook.1.56.2PMID 25373597PMCID PMC5402217
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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• Acknowledgements

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