WINNING ABSTRACT: The epithelium of the human airway wall serves as structural and functional barrier against inhaled and deposited particulate antigen. Recently we have shown that human blood monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MDDC) and human blood monocytes derived macrophages (MDM) collaborate as sentinels against foreign particulate antigen by building a transepithelial interacting cellular ...

Soybean allergy presents a health threat to humans and animals. The mechanism by which food/feed allergen β-conglycinin injures the intestinal barrier has not been well understood. In this study, the changes of epithelial permeability, integrity, metabolic activity, the tight junction (TJ) distribution and expression induced by β-conglycinin were evaluated using IPEC-J2 model. The results showe...

5 6 7 8 1 Department of Internal Medicine, Health Sciences Center, Health Exercise & Sports Science of 9 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87131, USA. 10 2 School of Health Sciences, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Michigan, 48859, USA. 11 3 The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, 12 University of Copenhagen,...

The PAR-3-atypical protein kinase C (aPKC)-PAR-6 complex has been implicated in the development of apicobasal polarity and the formation of tight junctions (TJs) in vertebrate epithelial cells. It is recruited by junctional adhesion molecule A (JAM-A) to primordial junctions where aPKC is activated by Rho family small guanosine triphosphatases. In this paper, we show that aPKC can interact dire...

Tight junctions are the outermost structures of intercellular junctions and are classified as transmembrane proteins. These factors form selective permeability barriers between cells, act as paracellular transporters and regulate structural and functional polarity of cells. Although tight junctions have been previously studied, comparison of the transcriptional‑translational levels of these mol...

In the Madin-Darby canine kidney epithelial cell line, the proteins occludin and ZO-1 are structural components of the tight junctions that seal the paracellular spaces between the cells and contribute to the epithelial barrier function. In Ras-transformed Madin-Darby canine kidney cells, occludin, claudin-1, and ZO-1 were absent from cell-cell contacts but were present in the cytoplasm, and th...

Tight junction proteins are important for intestinal homeostasis. They prevent paracellular transport of large molecules and maintain cell polarity. Impaired tight junction function leads to a more permeable intestinal epithelial barrier and therefore potentially increases disease risk. Limited information is available concerning the effects of food components on the intestinal barrier, particu...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Detailed characterization of the ultrastructural morphology of intercellular space in gastroesophageal reflux disease has not been fully studied. We aimed to investigate whether subtle alteration in intercellular space structure and tight junction proteins might differ among patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease. METHODS Esophageal biopsies at 5 cm above the gastroesop...

Paracingulin is an M(r) 150-160 kDa cytoplasmic protein of vertebrate epithelial tight and adherens junctions and comprises globular head, coiled-coil rod, and globular tail domains. Unlike its homologous tight junction protein cingulin, paracingulin has been implicated in the control of junction assembly and has been localized at extrajunctional sites in association with actin filaments. Here ...

Jessica L. Maiers, Xiao Peng*, Alan S. Fanning and Kris A. DeMali The Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA The Department of Biochemistry, University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA The Department of Cell Biology and Ph...