Because these bridges provide both membrane and cytoplasmic connectivity between cells, plants are regarded as a supracellular assembly (Baluška et al. 2004b, c).
He et al. (2014) followed the patterns of flow of microbeads injected into Drosophila embryonic epithelia to assess the patterns of mechanical connectivity between cells.
(A ) As input we take the connectivity between cells (B ), the distance between them (C ), the depth of the cell bodies (D ), and the depth profile of the synapses (E ).
Fusiform interneurons connect to each other and also to excitatory spiny stellate cells; the heterocellular coupling occurs less often (6%), illustrating a similar trend of reduced connectivity between cells from different classes.
Connectivity in the cortex is not random, but rather involves a higher occurrence of interconnected microcircuits (or motifs) than expected by chance (Song et al. 2005; Perin et al. 2011), as well as a higher probability of connectivity between cells that share common inputs (Yoshimura et al. 2005; Kampa et al. 2006) or have a similar stimulus preference (Ko et al. 2011).
Regarding Tuba1a, it is conceivable that the microcephaly phenotype may be the result of cell death either due to abnormal neuronal migration or due to a failure of differentiation, and, in particular, of synaptogenesis and synapse remodeling, responsible for a defect of connectivity between cells.
However, the general trend appears to illustrate a loss in electrical connectivity between cells from different classes, as networks mature (e.g., around P14, neocortical pyramidal neurons are connected via gap junctions to interneurons, but in adult animals no such connections have been observed; Meyer et al. 2002).
Note the high degree of cytokine connectivity between immune cells – macrophages, B cells, dendritic cells, and NK cells – and non-immune body cells – fibroblasts, endothelial cells, epithelial cells, platelets (PLAT), osteoblasts (OSTb), osteoclasts (OSTc), chondrocytes (CHON), and smooth muscle cells.
As in (Wang, 2002), the network possesses all-to-all connectivity but the strength of connections between cell types from different populations varies.
