Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics, King's College London, London, UK.
Cell Adh Migr. 2011 Jul-Aug;5(4):351-9. doi: 10.4161/cam.5.4.16915. Epub 2011 Jul 1.
Cell adhesion to extracellular matrix proteins or to other cells is essential for the control of embryonic development, tissue integrity, immune function and wound healing. Adhesions are tightly spatially regulated structures containing over a hundred different proteins that co-ordinate both dynamics and signalling events at these sites. Extensive biochemical and morphological analysis of adhesion types over the past three decades has greatly improved understanding of individual protein contributions to adhesion signalling and, in some cases, dynamics. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that these diverse macromolecular complexes contain a variety of protein sub-networks, as well as distinct sub-domains that likely play important roles in regulating adhesion behaviour. Until recently, resolving these structures, which are often less than a micron in size, was hampered by the limitations of conventional light microscopy. However recent advances in optical techniques and imaging methods have revealed exciting insight into the intricate control of adhesion structure and assembly. Here we provide an overview of the recent data arising from such studies of cell:matrix and cell:cell contact and an overview of the imaging strategies that have been applied to study the intricacies and hierarchy of proteins within adhesions.
细胞与细胞外基质蛋白或其他细胞的黏附对于胚胎发育、组织完整性、免疫功能和伤口愈合的控制至关重要。黏附是紧密的空间调节结构，包含超过一百种不同的蛋白质，协调这些部位的动力学和信号事件。在过去的三十年中，对黏附类型的广泛生化和形态分析极大地提高了对单个蛋白质对黏附信号的贡献的理解，在某些情况下，还提高了对动力学的理解。然而，越来越明显的是，这些不同的大分子复合物包含各种蛋白质子网，以及可能在调节黏附行为中起重要作用的不同亚域。直到最近，由于传统的光学显微镜的限制，解析这些通常小于一微米的结构一直受到阻碍。然而，最近光学技术和成像方法的进步揭示了对黏附结构和组装的复杂控制的令人兴奋的见解。在这里，我们提供了细胞：基质和细胞：细胞接触的此类研究的最新数据概述，并概述了用于研究黏附内蛋白质的复杂性和层次结构的成像策略。
