A role for HOXA4 in mediating cell contacts is further supported by an increase in basal lamina thickness and collagen in the colonic mucosa of transgenic mice overexpressing Hoxa4 [ 33].
It is possible that binding of CA125/MUC16 to E-cadherin complexes results in the surface localisation of E-cadherin, which mediates cell contact and suppression of cell invasion.
This observation, along with model predictions of the relative frequency and perimeter length associated with E-cadherin mediated cell contact in the different environments (as shown in figure 7), indicates that at high density, cells in low calcium are still able to migrate and make contacts that are predominantly transient in nature (as shown in additional file 2).
P-Selectin represents a pivotal adhesion molecule mediating cell-cell contact of platelets with leukocytes, endothelial cells, and other platelets.
ICAM-1 plays a critical role in mediating cell-cell contact between leukocytes and cells of various origins.
Moreover, as cadherins mediating cell-cell contact and adhesion, Fat and Dachsous could originate quite early, probably in or before M. brevicollis.
Cadherin 2 (Cdh2), a member of the cadherin family might play a functional role similar to N-cadherin, which was found to be expressed in granulosa cells and oocytes mediating cell to cell contacts [ 14].
We have extended our previous, simple sigmoidal relationship between extracellular calcium and E-cadherin-mediated cell contact to a more sophisticated rule set which more quantitatively reflects the observations in [ 21, 22].
As such, we think it is most likely that Dectin-1 signaling is crucial for mediating cell-to-cell contact between DCs/macrophages and tumor cells and that this contact leads to NK activation.
Taken together, these results support the notion that Dectin-1 signaling is crucial for mediating cell-to-cell contact and subsequent NK activation.
