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BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE
FOURTH EDITION
SCOTT FREEMAN
Lectures by Stephanie Scher Pandolfi
2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Key Concepts
Extracellular material strengthens cells and helps bind them together.
Cell-cell connections help adjacent cells adhere. Cell-cell gaps allow adjacent cells to communicate.
Intercellular signals are responsible for creating an integrated whole from many thousands of independent parts. In target cells, intercellular signals are received, processed, responded to, and deactivated. If the signal is received at the cell surface, the processing step involves production of an intracellular signal.
2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
The primary cell wall defines the shape of the plant cell and counteracts the turgor pressure it experiences.
Like the extracellular materials found in other organisms, one of the ECMs most important functions is structural support.
The amount and composition of the ECM vary depending upon the cell type.
Actin protein filaments in the cytoskeleton bind to transmembrane integrin proteins. Integrins bind to ECM proteins such as fibronectins, which then bind to collagen. Direct linkage between the cytoskeleton and ECM keeps individual cells in place and helps adjacent cells adhere to each other. Breakdown can lead to metastasis of cancerous cells.
Cell-Cell Attachments
The structures that hold cells together vary among multicellular organisms.
Plant cells are glued together by the middle lamella, which is continuous with the adjacent plant cells primary cell walls. The middle lamella is comprised of gelatinous pectins.
Tight Junctions
Tight junctions are composed of specialized proteins in the plasma membranes of adjacent animal cells. These proteins line up and bind to each other, stitching the two cells together to form a watertight seal between the two plasma membranes. Tight junctions are usually found between cells in tissues that form a barrier, such as the tissue lining the stomach or bladder. Tight junctions are dynamic and variable.
Desmosomes
Desmosomes are made of proteins that link the cytoskeletons of adjacent cells.
Selective Adhesion
Experiments using adult sponges demonstrated selective adhesion, in which dissociated cells could aggregate and adhere to cells of the same tissue type, eventually re-forming functional adult sponges.
Plant cells are connected by plasmodesmata, gaps in the cell wall where the plasma membranes, cytoplasm, and smooth ER of two cells connect. In most animal tissues, gap junctions connect adjacent cells by forming channels that allow the flow of small molecules between cells.
Signaling: Direct
Lipid-soluble hormones usually diffuse across the plasma membrane into their target cells cytoplasm.
Lipid-insoluble hormones are large or hydrophilic and do not cross the plasma membrane but instead bind to a receptor on the cells plasma membrane.
Signal Receptors
Signal receptors are proteins that change their shape or activity after binding to a signaling molecule. Receptors are dynamic and may change in their sensitivity to particular hormones. Receptors can be blocked. Signal receptors that bind to lipid-soluble hormones are located inside the cell, but most signal receptors are located in the plasma membrane.
In this case the hormone-receptor complex is transported to the nucleus, where it alters gene expression.
When a signal binds at the cell surface it triggers a complex series of events, collectively called a signal transduction pathway, which converts the extracellular hormone signal to an intracellular signal.
The message transmitted by a hormone is amplified as it changes form. Signal transduction occurs at the plasma membrane. Amplification occurs inside.
Signal Transduction
Signal transduction involves G proteins or enzyme-linked receptors. G proteins trigger the production of an intracellular messenger. Enzyme-linked receptors trigger the activation of a series of proteins inside the cell.
G Proteins
G proteins are intracellular peripheral membrane proteins that are closely associated with transmembrane signal receptors.
When G proteins are activated by a signal receptor, they trigger the production of messengers inside the cell. G proteins link the receipt of an extracellular signal to the production of an intracellular signal.
G proteins are activated when they bind GTP and are deactivated when they hydrolyze the bound GTP to GDP.
1. Hormone binds to the membrane receptor, which changes shape and activates G protein.
2. G protein exchanges GDP for GTP and splits into two parts. 3. One part of the G protein activates a membrane enzyme, which catalyzes the production of a second messenger.
Second Messengers
Second messengers are small molecules that diffuse rapidly throughout the cell, amplifying the hormone signal. Several second messengers work by activating protein kinases, which add a phosphate group to, or phosphorylate, other proteins.
Enzyme-Linked Receptors
Enzyme-linked receptors are transmembrane proteins that bind a hormone signal and directly catalyze a reaction inside the cell.
The best-known group of enzyme-linked receptors is the receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs).
5. Phosphorylation cascade, with each phosphorylated protein catalyzing the phosphorylation of other proteins, amplifies the original signal many times over.
2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
1. A change in which genes are being expressed in the target cell 2. Activate or deactivate a particular target protein that already exists in the cell