Cowin P, Garrod D R
Nature. 1983 Mar 10;302(5904):148-50. doi: 10.1038/302148a0.
Many workers regard cell adhesion as a highly specific phenomenon, believing that different molecular mechanisms are involved in the adhesion of cells of different tissues and different species. We believe that the evidence from cell behaviour is against this view and that cells share common adhesion mechanisms (for reviews see refs 1, 2); however, molecular evidence is lacking. As an approach to providing such evidence we have begun to study desmosomes, the cell-surface organelles responsible for strong intercellular adhesion in epithelia. We have raised antisera against each of five high-molecular weight (MW) desmosomal components. Having determined the specificity of our antisera by immunoblotting, we show here that each gives a staining pattern corresponding to the distribution of desmosomes in a range of tissues from different vertebrate species, demonstrating that desmosomal components are widely shared and highly conserved.
许多研究者认为细胞黏附是一种高度特异性的现象，他们相信不同组织和不同物种的细胞黏附涉及不同的分子机制。我们认为，细胞行为方面的证据与这种观点相悖，细胞具有共同的黏附机制（相关综述见参考文献1、2）；然而，分子层面的证据尚缺。作为提供此类证据的一种方法，我们已开始研究桥粒，这是上皮细胞中负责细胞间强黏附的细胞表面细胞器。我们针对五种高分子量桥粒成分分别制备了抗血清。通过免疫印迹法确定抗血清的特异性后，我们在此表明，每种抗血清给出的染色模式都与来自不同脊椎动物物种的一系列组织中桥粒的分布相对应，这表明桥粒成分广泛存在且高度保守。
