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Establishment of an Embryo Implantation Model In Vitro
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Analysis of integrin functions in peri-implantation embryos, hematopoietic system, and skin

Eloi Montanez1, Aleksandra Piwko-Czuchra, Martina Bauer

  • 1Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Department of Molecular Medicine, Martinsried, Germany.

Methods in Enzymology
|August 19, 2007
PubMed

Integrins mediate cell adhesion, permit traction forces important for cell migration, and cross-talk with growth factor receptors to regulate cell proliferation, cell survival, and cell differentiation. The plethora of functions explains their central role for development and disease. The progress in mouse genetics and the ease with which the mouse genome can be manipulated enormously contributed to our understanding of how integrins exert their functions at the molecular level. In the present chapter, we describe tests that are routinely used in our laboratory to investigate embryos, organs, and cells (peri-implantation embryos, hematopoietic system, epidermis, and hair follicles) that lack the expression of integrins or integrin-associated proteins.

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