Elsevier The Adhesive Interaction of Cells

The aim of "The Adhesive Interaction of Cells" has been to assemble a series of reviews by leading international experts embracing many of the most important recent developments in this rapidly expanding field. The purpose of all biological research is to understand the form and function of living organisms and, by comprehending the normal, to find explanations and remedies for the abnormal and for disease conditions. The molecules involved in cell adhesion are of fundamental importance to the structure and function of all multicellular organisms. In this book, the contributors focus on the systems of vertebrates, especially mammals, since these are most relevant to human disease. It would have been equally possible to concentrate on developmental processes and adhesion in lower organisms. A major function of adhesion molecules is to bind cells to each other or to the extracellular matrix, but they are much more than "glue". Adhesions in animal tissues must be dynamic-forming, persisting, or declining in regulated fashion- to facilitate the mobility and turnover of tissue cells. Moreover, the majority of adhesion molecules are transmembrane molecules and thus provide links between the cells and their surroundings. This gives rise to another major function of adhesion molecules, the capacity to transduce signals across the hydrophobic barrier imposed by the plasma membrane. Such signal transduction is crucially important to many aspects of cellular function including the regulation of cell motility, gene expression, and differentiation. The work in this book progresses through four sections. Part I discusses the four major families of adhesion molecules themselves, the integrins (Green and Humphries), the cadherins (Stappert and Kemler), the selectins (Tedder et al) and the immunoglobulin superfamily (Simmons); part 2 considers junctional complexes involved in cell interactions: focal adhesions and adherens junct