Topographical cues, independent of biochemistry, generated by the extracellular matrix may have significant effects upon cellular behavior. Studies have documented that substratum topography has direct effects on the ability of cells to orient themselves, migrate, and produce organized cytoskeletal arrangements. Basement membranes are composed of extracellular matrix proteins and found througho...

The extracellular matrix (EM) has various important functions. The basement membrane, which is part of the EM, has major components such as type IV collagen (C-IV), laminin, and heparan sulfate proteoglycan (HSPG). The basement membrane controls osmosis of various molecules, as well as the approach of growth factors, hormones, and neurotransmitters, etc. to the cellular surface. Thus, in this s...

Skeletal muscle regeneration occurs by the activation, proliferation and fusion of muscle precursor cells (myoblasts) that usually lie in a satellite cell position on the surface of the sarcolemma beneath the external lamina (basement membrane) of myofibres. Thus these myoblasts (satellite cells), as is the whole surface of the myfibre and the neuromuscular junctions (NMJ), are in intimate cont...

Apoptosis is an active mechanism of cell death required for normal tissue homeostasis. Cells require survival signals to avoid the engagement of apoptosis. In the mammary gland, secretory epithelial cells are removed by apoptosis during involution. This cell loss coincides with matrix metalloproteinase activation and basement membrane degradation. In this paper we describe studies that confer a...

Skin in the tadpole of anuran larvae prior to metamorphosis is composed of two layers of epidermal cells (Leeson and Threadgold, 1961; Chapman and Dawson, 1961; Edds and Sweeny, 1960, 1962), a laminated basement lamella, and a layer of dermal mesenchyme cells apposed to the underside of the basement lamella. An adepidermal space and membrane (Salpeter and Singer, 1959, 1960) separate epidermis ...

A coarctation hypertensive rat model was used to examine the effects of elevated blood pressure on basement membrane component synthesis by cardiac myocytes and aorta using immunohistochemistry and Northern blot analysis. Carotid arterial pressure increased immediately on coarctation, and left ventricular hypertrophy was maximal within 5 days. In immunohistochemical studies, fibronectin and lam...

Total 4-hydroxyproline content and volume were measured in the same sample of microdissected glomeruli obtained fro rat and human outer or inner cortex. Glomerular volume was determined by computer-assisted image analysis, and 4-hydroxyproline was measured by a highly sensitive gas-liquid chromatographic method. Results were expressed as weight of basement membrane material by comparison with t...

Although the ability of mononuclear phagocytes to interact with basement membranes and other extracellular matrices is well documented, the mechanisms involved and their possible modes of regulation are poorly understood (1) . Monocytes must penetrate the basement membranes of vascular endothelia during their emigration from blood to tissue (1) and they can encounter basement membranes again af...