The developmental expression and organization of membrane proteins of the mammalian lens

Epithelial Organization of the Mammalian Lens

“…7). Curiously, large gap junction plaques were not observed in the lateral surface of these cells in spite of signi®cant immunoreactivity detected in this region with antibodies against Cx46 (Louis et al, 1993) and Cx50 (White et al, 1992). This apparent lack of large gap junction plaques is consistent with results from biochemical studies showing that Cx46 and Cx50 form heteromeric channels arranged as singlets or in very small plaques in these surfaces (Donaldson and Kistler, 1993;Konig and Zampighi, 1995).…”

Identification of a Novel Intercellular Structure in Late-Stage Differentiating Lens Cells

“…Morphologically, fibre cell differentiation begins with the elongation of cuboidal epithelial cells into the ribbon-like fibre cells [reviewed in 1]. This elongation is accompanied by the expression of a number of fibre-cell-specific proteins, including the intermediate filament proteins CP49 and filensin [reviewed in 2,3], plasma membrane proteins such as MP26 [4] and MP20 [5] and the cytoplasmic crystallins [reviewed in 6]. At the time when the apical and basal ends of fibre cells reach the anterior and posterior poles of the lens, respectively, the cells shut down transcription [31] and subsequently dismantle their cytoplasmic organelles [7-13; reviewed in 14, 15].…”