Revival: Principles of Cell Adhesion (1995)

Peter D. Richardson, Manfred Steiner

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781138561380
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351358972
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Intended for cell biologists, biophysicists, biochemists, molecular biologists, physiologists, researchers in hemostatsis and thrombosis and pathologists, this book provides an insight into cell adhesion from three interdisciplinary perspectives: fundamental facts of adhesion; molecular biochemistry of adhesion and physiological aspects. It summarizes the basic aspects of surfaces in general and describes the theoretical and experimental tools necessary to investigate cell adhesion, including the basic biochemistry and molecular biology of adhesion. The book offers concise treatment of individual topics, features current material, and provides key references as a guide to further study.

Section III

Physiology of Adhesion

Chapter 13

Homing of Cells: Stem Cell as a Model

Mehdi Tavassoli (Posthumous)

Contents

I. Introduction and Definition

II. Evolutionary Considerations: Nomadic vs. Settled Hemopoiesis

III. Fetal and Embryonic Homing

A. The Concept of Directive Endocrinization

B. Microenvironmental Organization

IV. Postnatal Cell Homing

A. Recognition vs. Adhesion

B. Molecular Probes

C. In vivo Studies

D. In vitro Studies

E. Binding Studies

V. Molecular Nature of Recognition

A. Homing Receptor (HR)

B. Homing Ligand

C. Membrane-Associated and Extracellular Matrix

VI. Anatomical Considerations

A. The Structure of Hemopoietic Marrow

B. A Two-Step Homing

VII. Future Directions

References

Home is the place where, when you

have to go there,

They have to take you in.

— Robert Frost, The Death of the Hired Man (lines 118–119)

I. Introduction and Definition

In any organism, the cells of one kind or another tend to segregate into tissues with distinct organization and microstructure (organotypic formations). This selective segregation, although long known as a common sense observation, was first demonstrated experimentally by Moscona.¹ He began to mix different cell types in suspension, such as cartilage and kidney cells, and found that they sorted out according to type to form solid blocks of kidney tissue or cartilage tissue but never ended up as a random mixture of both.

Embryologist Paul Weiss² followed up these observations by studying microcinematographically the cells of chick embryo. He found that the cells move around, perfectly at random. However, when they collide with each other, their reaction differs, depending upon whether the colliding cells are homotypic (of the same kind) or heterotypic (of different kind). He noted that on collision, cells of the same kind tend to paralyze each other along the contacting surfaces, so that the mode of locomotion of cells changes. The cells thus associate and, after a period of time, a cluster of homotypic cells is formed, although apparently no permanent mutual cementing occurs. If colliding cells are not of the same kind, they do not recognize each other and do not associate. They simply snap apart and keep moving. They bypass each other, as if they were inert objects. When Weiss subsequently transplanted these reaggregated clusters of cells in the organism, they revascularized and formed organotypic formations of a remarkable degree of ordered complexity.³

It was by mere coincidence that Edelman,^4,5 trying to raise monoclonal antibodies reacting with neural tissue, discovered an antibody that reacted with cell adhesion molecule (CAM). It was responsible for the paralyzing reaction of homotypic cells. Owing to the availability of new methodologies, we have since learned much about the molecular basis of this segregation of homotypic cells into tissues.

Association of cells into organotypic formations makes physiological sense: cells of similar functions can carry out those functions in a microenvironment that may, in the course of evolution, evolve into an optimal one. Thus, we can define “homing” as a recognition system that permits association of cells into organotypic formations to permit the optimal microenvironment for a certain function.

An example may illuminate the matter. In the course of evolution, the first organotypic formations of blood-forming cells are blood islands in segmented worms.^6-9 They form in the wall of the intestinal tract, particularly in the submucosa. What makes this environment particularly suitable is its proximity to absorptive surfaces, where necessary nutrients for a proliferative cell system can be obtained readily. As the system evolves, it becomes increasingly more complex and develops other means of receiving nutrients.^10,11 Nutritional requirement is no longer preeminent. On the other hand, a system of microcirculation offering a very slow and pulsatile flow rate facilitates the function.^6,12 Evolutionary pressure acts to move the site of hemopoiesis into the bone, where the fixed volume offered by its rigid confines permits this essential microenvironmental feature.

In this chapter, the molecular basis of recognition and adherence of hemopoietic cells is used as a model system for homing of cells.

II. Evolutionary Considerations: Nomadic VS. Settled Hemopoiesis

Hemopoiesis offers a particularly suitable model for the study of homing. It offers information in the course of its evolutionary aspects, its fetal and embryonic life, and its postnatal course. Postnatal hemopoiesis as a continuous phenomenon does not exist in the least-developed invertebrates. The life span of these organisms is short. They are born and die with the same blood cells (hemocytes).⁷ There is no need for their de novo regeneration in the course of life. Nor is there a need for cellular association to organotypic formation: there is no “homing”. In certain worms and insects, blood cells may undergo a few divisions within the circulatory space.¹³ These divisions may be limited to the nucleus, but as the evolution proceeds, both the nucleus and the cytoplasm are involved. Hemopoiesis may be here considered as “nomadic” or migratory. The most primitive “settlement” of hem...

Table of contents

• SECTION I: Fundamental Facets of Adhesion
• SECTION II: The Molecular Biochemistry of Adhesion
• SECTION III: Physiology of Adhesion