title: Endothelial barriers: from hypothetical pores to membrane proteins.
abstract: The anatomical counterpart of the physiologically defined small pore system of capillary endothelia has proved difficult to establish. In non-brain continuous capillaries, the contributions of caveolar and transmembrane pathways are likely to be small and paracellular clefts are probably the dominant routes. Analogy with epithelial paracellular pathways suggests that tight junctions may be the most restrictive elements. However, structural features of tight junction-based models are incompatible with physiological data; it is more likely that the tight junction acts as a shutter limiting the available cleft area. Proposed molecular sieves elsewhere in the paracellular pathway include the glycocalyx and the cadherin-based complexes of the adherens junctions. The molecular architecture of tight junctions and adherens junctions is moderately well defined in terms of molecular species, and there are differences at both sites between the endothelial and epithelial spectra of protein expression. However, definition of the size-restricting pore remains elusive and may require structural biology approaches to the spatial arrangements and interactions of the membrane molecular complexes surrounding the endothelial paracellular clefts.
authors.affiliation: Division of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, UK. j.a.firth@ic.ac.uk
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Firth
mesh_terms: D022005:Adherens Junctions / Q000648:ultrastructure; D000818:Animals; D002196:Capillaries / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D002199:Capillary Permeability / Q000502:physiology; D004730:Endothelium, Vascular / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D006801:Humans; D007365:Intercellular Junctions / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000502:physiology*; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D008954:Models, Biological; D019108:Tight Junctions / Q000648:ultrastructure
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins