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Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions
The tight junction (TJ) and the adherens junction (AJ) bridge the paracellular cleft of epithelial and endothelial cells. In addition to their role as protective barriers against bacteria and their toxins they maintain ion homeostasis, cell polarity, and mechano-sensing. Their functional loss leads...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7037929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31979366 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21030744 |
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author | Gonschior, Hannes Haucke, Volker Lehmann, Martin |
author_facet | Gonschior, Hannes Haucke, Volker Lehmann, Martin |
author_sort | Gonschior, Hannes |
collection | PubMed |
description | The tight junction (TJ) and the adherens junction (AJ) bridge the paracellular cleft of epithelial and endothelial cells. In addition to their role as protective barriers against bacteria and their toxins they maintain ion homeostasis, cell polarity, and mechano-sensing. Their functional loss leads to pathological changes such as tissue inflammation, ion imbalance, and cancer. To better understand the consequences of such malfunctions, the junctional nanoarchitecture is of great importance since it remains so far largely unresolved, mainly because of major difficulties in dynamically imaging these structures at sufficient resolution and with molecular precision. The rapid development of super-resolution imaging techniques ranging from structured illumination microscopy (SIM), stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, and single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) has now enabled molecular imaging of biological specimens from cells to tissues with nanometer resolution. Here we summarize these techniques and their application to the dissection of the nanoscale molecular architecture of TJs and AJs. We propose that super-resolution imaging together with advances in genome engineering and functional analyses approaches will create a leap in our understanding of the composition, assembly, and function of TJs and AJs at the nanoscale and, thereby, enable a mechanistic understanding of their dysfunction in disease. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7037929 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70379292020-03-10 Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions Gonschior, Hannes Haucke, Volker Lehmann, Martin Int J Mol Sci Review The tight junction (TJ) and the adherens junction (AJ) bridge the paracellular cleft of epithelial and endothelial cells. In addition to their role as protective barriers against bacteria and their toxins they maintain ion homeostasis, cell polarity, and mechano-sensing. Their functional loss leads to pathological changes such as tissue inflammation, ion imbalance, and cancer. To better understand the consequences of such malfunctions, the junctional nanoarchitecture is of great importance since it remains so far largely unresolved, mainly because of major difficulties in dynamically imaging these structures at sufficient resolution and with molecular precision. The rapid development of super-resolution imaging techniques ranging from structured illumination microscopy (SIM), stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, and single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) has now enabled molecular imaging of biological specimens from cells to tissues with nanometer resolution. Here we summarize these techniques and their application to the dissection of the nanoscale molecular architecture of TJs and AJs. We propose that super-resolution imaging together with advances in genome engineering and functional analyses approaches will create a leap in our understanding of the composition, assembly, and function of TJs and AJs at the nanoscale and, thereby, enable a mechanistic understanding of their dysfunction in disease. MDPI 2020-01-23 /pmc/articles/PMC7037929/ /pubmed/31979366 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21030744 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Gonschior, Hannes Haucke, Volker Lehmann, Martin Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions |
title | Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions |
title_full | Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions |
title_fullStr | Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions |
title_full_unstemmed | Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions |
title_short | Super-Resolution Imaging of Tight and Adherens Junctions: Challenges and Open Questions |
title_sort | super-resolution imaging of tight and adherens junctions: challenges and open questions |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7037929/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31979366 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21030744 |
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