In this rare congenital abnormality, first described by Hasner (I88i), single or multiple fine strands of tissue join together parts of the upper and lower eyelid margins. These bands arise from the 'grey line', posterior to the cilia but in front of the orifices of the meibomian glands; this is in contradistinction to other forms of developmental ankyloblepharon, in which sheets of tissue that...

BACKGROUND Peritoneal lavage with saline at room temperature causes peritoneal hypothermia, vasoconstriction, hypoxia, and acidosis, which are effects that are known to reduce fibrinolysis. Decreased fibrinolysis causes permanent adhesions. Normothermic lavage may prevent this deleterious process and reduce peritoneal adhesions. METHODS A rat model of cecal abrasion was used. Control animals ...

A possible mechanism for intercellular invasion is that the strength of adhesion between host and invading cells is greater than the average of the strengths of homotypic adhesions. This hypothesis has been examined by a study of the kinetics of aggregation of dispersed populations of an invasive cell type (the rabbit peritoneal neutrophil granulocyte) and a host cell type (the chick embryo hea...

Fibroblast migration is an integral component of biological processes such as wound healing and embryogenesis. Previous experiments examining fibroblast locomotion from tissue explants have shown that migrating fibroblasts lack, or contain only transient, focal adhesions (focal contacts). Focal adhesions are specialized regions of tight cell-matrix interaction, assembled by a complex process of...

During tissue morphogenesis, cellular rearrangements give rise to a large variety of three-dimensional structures. Final tissue architecture varies greatly across organs, and many develop to include combinations of folds, tubes, and branched networks. To achieve these different tissue geometries, constituent cells must follow different programs that dictate changes in shape and/or migratory beh...

Cell migration is a crucial event for tissue organization during development, and its dysregulation leads to several diseases, including cancer. Cells exhibit various types of migration, such as single mesenchymal or amoeboid migration, collective migration and scaffold cell-dependent migration. The migration properties are partly dictated by cell adhesion and its endocytic regulation. While an...

Mechanical coupling between a cell and substrate relies on focal adhesions, clusters of adhesion proteins linking stress fibers (bundles of actin proteins) inside the cell with surrounding tissue. Focal adhesions have been demonstrated to both measure and regulate the mechanical traction along the stress fibers. We present a quantitative model for focal adhesion mechano-sensing and stress regul...

Talin is believed to be one of the key proteins involved in linking actin filaments to extracellular matrix receptors in focal adhesions. Our strategy for studying the function of talin has been to inactivate talin in living fibroblasts in tissue culture through the microinjection of affinity-purified, polyclonal anti-talin antibodies. The effect of the injected anti-talin antibodies on cell sp...

Focal adhesions are specific types of cellular adhesion structures through which both mechanical force and regulatory signals are transmitted. Recently, the existence of focal adhesions in 3D environment has been questioned. Using a unique life-like model of dermis-based matrix we analysed the presence of focal adhesions in a complex 3...

OBJECTIVE Postoperative pleural adhesions lead to major problems in repeated thoracic surgery. To date, no antiadhesive product has been proven clinically effective. Previous studies of differently charged polypeptides, poly-L-lysine (PL) and poly-L-glutamate (PG) have shown promising results reducing postoperative abdominal adhesions in experimental settings. This pilot study examined the poss...