The skin is the largest organ in the human body, and its outermost part, called the epidermis, is replenished every three weeks. The cells fueling this renewal of the epidermal stem cells, found in ...

Developmental biologists have discovered that during egg development in fruit flies, intercellular gaps open between epithelial cells in a controlled way at the points where three cells meet. This ...

Cells of organs and tissues commonly communicate directly with one another via permeable membrane junctions. Cell-to-cell channels, spanning the width of both membranes of a junction, are thought to ...

Epithelial cells defend human skin and mucous membranes. Specialized structures known as “junctions” enable this “barrier” tissue to carry out its role. They control interactions between cells and ...

Connexin 43 (C×43α1) gap junction has been shown to have an essential role in mediating functional coupling of neural crest cells and in modulating neural crest cell migration. Here, we showed that ...