..., resulting in their random orientation. Gap junctions were perturbed in the N-cadherin-null myocytes. By contrast, focal contacts appeared normal in the mutant cells. Furthermore,E-cadherin restored normal cell morphology and behavior to the N-cadherin-deficient myocytes, including proper alignment...

...Eli Zamir; Benjamin Geiger Currently >50 proteins have been reported to be associated with focal contacts and related ECM adhesions. Most of these contain multiple domains through which they can interact with different molecular partners, potentially forming a dense and heterogeneous protein...

...Tova Volberg; Lewis Romer; Eli Zamir; Benjamin Geiger Activation of tyrosine kinases during integrin-mediated cell-matrix adhesion is involved both in the regulation of focal contact assembly and in the initiation of signaling processes at the cell-matrix adhesive interface. In order to determine...

... of mouse α-parvin and determined the K d with muscle F-actin to be 8.4±2.1 μM. The GFP-tagged α-parvin co-localizes with actin filaments at membrane ruffles, focal contacts and tensin-rich fibers in the central area of fibroblasts. Domain analysis identifies the second calponin homology domain of parvin...

... formed focal adhesions that were indistinguishable from those of the control cells. Fluores-cent labeling for actin, talin, α-actinin, paxillin and phos-photyrosinated components indicated that the organization of all these focal contact-associated components was essen-tially identical in the vinculin...

... fibroblast culture systems. PG-M was abundant in the subcellular space of fibroblasts, but was excluded selectively from focal contacts where vinculin, integrins and fibronectin were localized. Hyaluronan, CD44 and tenascin were distributed similarly as PG-M. In contrast, perlecan was associated...

... 2 . Similarly, linear islands induced as many cells to undergo DNA synthesis as did circles more than twice as large. These experiments support the idea that focal contacts might act as tranducers of the anchorage stimulus to growth. They show that total focal contact area is consistently...

...Irwin I. Singer; Diana M. Kazazis; Solomon Scott ABSTRACT We have examined the cell-to-substratum attachment surface of hamster fibroblasts with scanning EM, and describe the surface ultrastructure of focal contacts and microspikes during cellular attachment and spreading on fibronectin. Nil 8...