Physiological and ultrastructural evidence indicates that gap junctions link many classes of neurons in mammalian central nervous system (CNS), allowing direct electrical and metabolic communication. Among at least six gap junction-forming connexin proteins in adult rat brain, connexin- (Cx) 32, Cx36, and Cx43 have been reported to occur in neurons. However, no connexin has been documented at u...

Immune cells are usually considered non-attached blood cells, which would exclude the formation of gap junctions. This is a misconception since many immune cells express connexin 43 (Cx43) and other connexins and are often residing in tissue. The role of gap junctions is largely ignored by immunologists as is the immune system in the field of gap junction research. Here, the current knowledge o...

A polyclonal antiserum, raised against a synthetic peptide matching part of the sequence of connexin43 (a rat cardiac gap-junctional protein), was used in combination with laser scanning confocal microscopy to investigate gap junction distribution in cardiac tissues from a range of mammalian species. Comparison of the localised punctate staining patterns obtained in ventricular tissue with the ...

Although circumstantial evidence has suggested that gap junctions mediate intercellular electrotonic coupling, it has not been possible in most tissues to exclude the involvement of other, coexisting cell junctions. We have made an electron microscopic study of replicas of frozen-fractured BHK21 cells (from tissue culture) and of brown fat cells of newborn mice. Both of these cell types are kno...

The development of gap junctions between pancreatic B-cells was quantitatively assessed in freeze-fracture replicas of isolated rat islets under different conditions of insulin secretion. The results show that in resting B-cells, gap junctions are small and scarce but that these junctions increase when insulin secretion is stimulated. Both a short (90 min) stimulation by glucose in vitro and a ...

The cells of all tissues are coupled by gap junctions, with the exception of blood and adult skeletal muscle cells. Gap junctions provide for homoeostasis and integrative function by mediating the exchange of ions and chemical second messenger molecules between adjacent cells. The electrical signaling provided by these specialized intercellular junctions is perhaps best understood in the heart,...

Our objective was to establish the existence of intercellular communication through gap junctions in synovial lining cells and in primary and passaged cultures of human synovial cells. Communication between cells was assessed using the nystatin perforated-patch method, fluorescent dye transfer, immunochemistry, transmission electron microscopy, and immunoblotting. Functional gap junctions were ...

See article by Yasui et al. [30] (pp. 68 –76) in this stimulus, inducing apoptosis in this model as well as the issue. exact mechanism of protection remain unclear. Yasui et al. [30] suggest that a dilution of apoptosis-inducing factors Gap junctions enable the cytoplasm of individual cells to through gap junctions into adjacent cells may explain the communicate directly and allow exchange of n...

Gap junctions are widely distributed in the brains across species and play essential roles in neural information processing. However, the role of gap junctions in insect cognition remains poorly understood. Using a flight simulator paradigm and genetic tools, we found that gap junctions are present in Drosophila Kenyon cells (KCs), the major neurons of the mushroom bodies (MBs), and showed that...

Vertebrate gap junctions, composed of proteins from the connexin gene family, play critical roles in embryonic development, co-ordinated contraction of excitable cells, tissue homoeostasis, normal cell growth and differentiation. Phosphorylation of connexin43, the most abundant and ubiquitously expressed connexin, has been implicated in the regulation of gap junctional communication at several ...