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Cells Connected by Tiny Tunnels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2018

Stephen W. Carmichael*
Affiliation:
Mayo Clinic

Extract

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Intracellular communication is imperative for multicellular organisms. Such devices as synapses and gap junctions have been recognized for decades. Now Amin Rustom, Raiser Saffrich, Ivanka Markovic, Paul Walther, and Hans-Hermann Gerdes have described a new model of cell-to-cell communication.

While looking at PC12 (rat pheochromocytoma) cells in the presence of fluorescently labeled wheat germ agglutinin, Rustom et al. observed relatively long connections extending between cells. These structures were 50 to 200 nm in diameter and up to several cell diameters in length and were named tunneling nanotubes (TNTs). TNTs were subsequently found connecting cultured cells from other lines. They were consistently positioned along the smallest distance between the cells, did not contact the substrate, and occasionally were branched. TNTs immunostained positive for actin, but did not contain microtubules. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy definitively established that a TNT represented a seamless continuity of the plasma membrane from one cell to another.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2004

Footnotes

1

The author gratefully acknowledges Dr. Hans-Hermann Gerdes for reviewing this article.

References

Note

2 Rustom, A., Saffrich, R., Markovic, I., Walther, P., and Gerdes, H.-H., Nanotubular highways for intercellular organelle transport. Science 303: 10071010, 2004 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.