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Cell-to-Cell Communication

Permeability, Formation, Genetics, and Functions of the Cell-Cell Membrane Channel

  • Chapter
Membrane Physiology

Abstract

In formulating Cell Theory, Schleiden(1) wrote in 1838: “Every higher organism is an aggregate of fully circumscribed and self-contained unit beings, the cells.” This basic tenet has been extraordinarily fruitful and influential in biology and medicine, and in many aspects its usefulness continues unabated. However, since the mid-1960s it has become clear that cellular circumscription is generally not complete; a wide variety of cells turned out to be interconnected by membrane channels at their junction.(2,3) Small molecules pass freely from one cell interior to another through these junctional channels so that the connected cell ensemble, rather than the single cell, is the unit in many cellular functions; there is cell autonomy only in respect to the larger molecules that do not permeate the junctional channels.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, 33152, USA

    Werner R. Loewenstein

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  1. Werner R. Loewenstein
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Medical School at Houston, 77025, Houston, TX, USA

    Thomas E. Andreoli M.D. (Professor and Chairman) (Professor and Chairman)

  2. Department of Physiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 06510, New Haven, CT, USA

    Joseph F. Hoffman Ph.D. (Eugene Higgins Professor and Chairman) (Eugene Higgins Professor and Chairman)

  3. Division of Nephrology, University of California, San Diego, 92037, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Darrell D. Fanestil M.D. (Professor of Medicine, and Head) (Professor of Medicine, and Head)

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Loewenstein, W.R. (1980). Cell-to-Cell Communication. In: Andreoli, T.E., Hoffman, J.F., Fanestil, D.D. (eds) Membrane Physiology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1718-1_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1718-1_18

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