Skin tight: cell adhesion in the epidermis of Caenorhabditis elegans.
The powerful genetics, genomics and microscopy tools available for C. elegans make it well suited to studying how epithelial cells adhere to one another and the extracellular matrix, and how the integrated, simultaneous activities of multiple cell adhesion complexes function to shape an organism. Recent studies using forward and reverse genetics have shed light on how phylogenetically conserved cell adhesion complexes, such as the cadherin/catenin complex, claudins, the Discs large complex and hemidesmosome-like attachment structures, regulate epithelial cell adhesion, providing new insights into conserved cell adhesion mechanisms in higher eukaryotes.
Hardin
Jeff
J
Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, 1117 W. Johnson St, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA. jdhardin@wisc.edu
Lockwood
Christopher
C
D000199:Actins / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000502:physiology*; D002448:Cell Adhesion / Q000502:physiology; D000078404:Epidermal Cells; D004817:Epidermis / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D005109:Extracellular Matrix / Q000378:metabolism; D008954:Models, Biological; D046912:Multiprotein Complexes / Q000378:metabolism*; D009119:Muscle Contraction / Q000502:physiology; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary
D000199:Actins; D046912:Multiprotein Complexes