In 1796, Edward Jenner first used the term, “vaccination,” to describe his studies which used poxvirus derived from lesions in cows to protect humans against infection with smallpox (Barquet & Domingo, 1997). Later, Louis Pasteur demonstrated that animals and people could be protected against disease when administered microbes that had been attenuated to reduce pathogenicity. From this early wo...

Every so often, a paper comes along that brings clarity to an issue. Clarity is not necessarily a final resolution, but rather a conceptual framework for productively addressing that issue. Such a paper could be based on a breakthrough discovery, an intriguing observation, a flash of intuition , or a systematic analysis. An excellent example of the latter is in this issue of The Journal of Cell...

Increases in arterial blood pressure cause cumulative changes in tissue structure and function, resulting ultimately in end-organ damage. One of the pathological hallmarks of hypertensive tissue injury is an increase in tissue fibrosis, which leads to reductions in tissue compliance and function. Fibrosis (or sclerosis) occurs as result of marked changes in the amount and composition of the ext...

SIGNIFICANCE The extracellular matrix (ECM) is a dynamic microenvironment that undergoes continuous remodeling, particularly during injury and wound healing. Chronic liver injury of many different etiologies such as viral hepatitis, alcohol abuse, drug-induced liver injury, obesity and insulin resistance, metabolic disorders, and autoimmune disease is characterized by excessive deposition of EC...

We present a perspective on the molecular evolution of the extracellular matrix (ECM) in metazoa that draws on research publications and data from sequenced genomes and expressed sequence tag libraries. ECM components do not function in isolation, and the biological ECM system or "adhesome" also depends on posttranslational processing enzymes, cell surface receptors, and extracellular proteases...

Introduction The extracellular matrix is a network of proteins and carbohydrates that supports and surrounds the cells in connective tissues. In addition to their structural-mechanical functions ECM molecules regulate diverse cellular functions, and play a significant role in several physiological and pathological processes, such as embryonic development, inflammation and wound healing, hemosta...