Tenascin, a mesenchymal extracellular matrix glycoprotein, has been implicated in epithelial-mesenchymal interactions during fetal development (Chiquet-Ehrismann, R., E. J. Mackie, C. A. Pearson, T. Sakakura, 1986, Cell, 47:131-139). We have now investigated the expression of tenascin during embryonic development of the mouse kidney. In this system, mesenchymal cells convert into epithelial cel...

Tenascin/hexabrachion is a large glycoprotein of the extracellular matrix. Previous reports have demonstrated that tenascin is associated with epithelial-mesenchymal interfaces during embryogenesis and is prominent in the matrix of many tumors. However, the distribution of tenascin is more restricted in adult tissues. We have found tenascin to be present in normal human skin in a distribution d...

Tenascin-W is a matricellular protein with a dynamically changing expression pattern in development and disease. In adults, tenascin-W is mostly restricted to stem cell niches, and is also expressed in the stroma of solid cancers. Here, we analyzed its expression in the bone microenvironment of breast cancer metastasis. Osteoblasts were isolated from tumor-free or tumor-bearing bones of mice in...

Tenascin-C is a hexabrachion-shaped matricellular protein with a very restricted expression in normal musculoskeletal tissues, but it is expressed abundantly during regenerative processes of these tissues and embryogenesis. To examine the importance of mechanical stress for the regulation of tenascin-C expression in the muscle-tendon unit, the effects of various states of mechanical loading (in...

Tenascin, an extracellular matrix protein, is expressed in human gliomas in vitro and in vivo. The distribution of tenascin at the invasive edge of these tumors, even surrounding solitary invading cells, suggests a role for this protein as a regulator of glioma cell migration. We tested whether purified tenascin, passively deposited on surfaces, influenced the adhesion or migration of a human g...

Studies on tenascin expression in hormonally dependent growing tissues of breast and endometrium suggested that its expression parallels the progression of normal or malignant proliferative alteration of the tissue. With the study presented here we addressed the question of whether antiprogestin-induced terminal differentiation down-regulates tenascin expression. By comparative immunolocalizati...

Increasing evidence reveals that extracellular matrix components can be regarded as a group of mediators in intrathymic T-cell migration and/or differentiation. Yet, little is known about the expression and putative function of one particular extracellular matrix protein, namely, tenascin in the thymus. Herein we investigated, by means of immunocytochemistry, tenascin expression in normal infan...

Tenascin-C is an extracellular matrix glycoprotein that is spatially expressed during organogenesis, in inflammatory and fibrotic disorders, and in neoplasms. The aim of this study was to analyze its expression in developing human lung tissues during pseudoglandular, canalicular, saccular, and alveolar periods corresponding to Weeks 12 to 40. Lung tissues were obtained at autopsy from 34 nonmal...

n this chapter we discuss functional data that reveal what the purpose of tenascin-C in tumors may be by focusing on studies that have examined what this extracellular matrix glycoprotein is doing in the tumor stroma as well as at sites of metastatic colonization. Tenascin-C is an extraordinarily pleiotrophic molecule. This functional plasticity is made possible by the multimodular structure of...

The extracellular matrix protein, tenascin, has been proposed as mediator in epithelial-mesenchymal interactions because of its characteristic distribution during embryogenesis. Here we compared the accumulation of tenascin and laminin in the early chicken lung bud. Laminin is deposited in the basement membrane, starting at the tips and increasing along the shafts of growing primary and seconda...