Despite the crucial role of extracellular matrix (ECM) in directing cell fate in healthy and diseased tissues--particularly in development, wound healing, tissue regeneration and cancer--the mechanisms that direct the assembly and regulate hierarchical architectures of ECM are poorly understood. Collagen I matrix assembly in vivo requires active fibronectin (Fn) fibrillogenesis by cells. Here w...

Plasma fibronectin (FN) binds fibrin in vitro by both noncovalent and covalent bonds and is decreased in DIC. In rabbits. conventionally purified 1251-FN had a complex blood clearance with a late t1/2 of 71 hr. A large portion was apparently altered, as evinced by rapid clearance and an intravascular/total body ratio (C1) of 0.28-0.51 . 3H-labeled FN, made in vivo by injection of 3H amino acids...

PURPOSE The polymerase chain reaction was used to examine fibronectin (FN) expression during corneal scrape wounding with specific attention to the presence, absence, or gross changes of alternatively spliced FN as differentially expressed in the corneal stroma versus the epithelium in normal and wounded tissue. METHODS Specific FN cDNA sequences were synthesized from rat cornea with total RN...

Hairy-cell leukemia (HCL) is a proliferation of clonal B-lymphocytes with features of activation. The disease has a number of distinctive characteristics, prominent among which is the fine reticulin fibrosis invariably present in the bone marrow. However, fibroblast infiltration has never been noted in the marrow and the origin of the fibrosis has not been established. The present studies show ...

The activation of mast cells by extra domain A of fibronectin (FN-EDA), an endogenous ligand of TLR4, and its contribution to the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in vivo were examined. FN-EDA, but no other domain of the fibronectin fragment, III(11) (FN-III(11)) and III(12) (FN-III(12)), stimulated bone marrow-derived murine mast cells (BMMCs) dose-dependently to secret cytokines (TNF...

Fibronectin (Fn) and tenascin (Tn) are two major extracellular matrix (ECM) glycoproteins that may have important roles both in fibrotic lung diseases and in lung tumors. The significance of Fn and Tn in human pleural mesothelial cells and pleural diseases is unclear. Transformed human pleural mesothelial cells (Met5A), primary cultures of mesothelial cells, and cultured mesothelioma cell lines...

Endothelial cell adhesion molecules are partly responsible for the distinct organ distribution of cancer metastases. Dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPP IV) expressed on rat lung capillary endothelia is shown here to be an adhesion receptor for rat breast cancer cells and to mediate lung colonization by these tumor cells. Fibronectin (FN) assembled on breast cancer cell surfaces into multiple, randoml...