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Published on: January 4, 2015
Possible involvement of adherens junction plaque proteins in tumorigenesis and metastasis
S Tsukita1, S Tsukita, A Nagafuchi
1Department of Information Physiology, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Aichi, Japan.
Abstract:
The cell-to-cell adherens junction is a site for cadherin-mediated adhesion where actin filaments are densely associated with the plasma membrane through its well developed plasmalemmal undercoat, a "plaque" structure. Recently, we succeeded in isolating the cell-to-cell adherens junctions from rat liver, and in identifying some novel AJ plaque constituents, including src-like tyrosine kinases, radixin, alpha-catenin, and a 220kD protein. The application of genetic engineering techniques to AJ plaque proteins has recently generated a wealth of novel observations, leading to the speculation that these proteins are involved in tumorigenesis and metastasis. This paper reviews these findings and discusses some functions of the AJ plaque proteins in normal cells, as well as in tumorigenesis and metastasis.
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