English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Control over cell viability is a fundamental property underlying numerous physiological processes. Cell spreading on a substrate was previously demonstrated to be a major factor in determining the viability of individual cells. In multicellular organisms, cell-cell contact is likely to play a significant role in regulating cell vitality, but its function is easily masked by cell-substrate interactions, thus remains incompletely characterized. In this study, we show that suspended immortalized human keratinocyte sheets with persisting intercellular contacts exhibited significant contraction, junctional actin localization, and reinforcement of cell-cell adhesion strength. Further, cells within these sheets remain viable, in contrast to trypsinized cells suspended without either cell-cell or cell-substrate contact, which underwent apoptosis at high rates. Suppression of plakoglobin weakened cell-cell adhesion in cell sheets and suppressed apoptosis in suspended, trypsinized cells. These results demonstrate that cell-cell contact may be a fundamental control mechanism governing cell viability and that the junctional protein plakoglobin is a key regulator of this process. Given the near-ubiquity of plakoglobin in multicellular organisms, these findings could have significant implications for understanding cell adhesion, modeling disease progression, developing therapeutics and improving the viability of tissue engineering protocols.

Cell-Cell Contact Preserves Cell Viability via Plakoglobin