Department of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
Departments of Cell Biology & Dermatology, Yale Stem Cell Center, Yale Cancer Center, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510, USA.
Curr Opin Cell Biol. 2019 Oct;60:84-91. doi: 10.1016/j.ceb.2019.04.009. Epub 2019 May 29.
Epithelia surround our bodies and line most of our organs. Intrinsic homeostatic mechanisms replenish and repair these tissues in the face of wear and tear, wounds, and even the presence of accumulating mutations. Recent advances in cell biology, genetics, and live-imaging techniques have revealed that epithelial homeostasis represents an intrinsically flexible process at the level of individual epithelial cells. This homeostatic flexibility has important implications for how we think about the more dramatic cell plasticity that is frequently thought to be associated with pathological settings. In this review, we will focus on key emerging mechanisms and processes of epithelial homeostasis and elaborate on the known molecular mechanisms of epithelial cell interactions to illuminate how epithelia are maintained throughout an organism's lifetime.
上皮组织环绕着我们的身体，排列在我们大多数器官的表面。内在的动态平衡机制在面对磨损、创伤，甚至是积累的突变时，会补充和修复这些组织。细胞生物学、遗传学和活体成像技术的最新进展揭示了上皮组织的动态平衡是单个上皮细胞层面上固有灵活的过程。这种动态平衡的灵活性对于我们如何思考更显著的细胞可塑性具有重要意义，通常认为这种细胞可塑性与病理状态有关。在这篇综述中，我们将重点介绍上皮组织动态平衡的关键新兴机制和过程，并详细阐述上皮细胞相互作用的已知分子机制，以阐明上皮组织在整个生物体生命周期中是如何维持的。
