Northwestern University. (1999, December 16).

"Cell Junctions" Respond To Environmental

Signals. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 29, 2020 from
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/12/991216080131.htm

Cells have developed mechanisms for coupling themselves to their neighbours and to the extracellular
world, making them have greater roles in metastasis of cancer. Professor Green discovered that the cell
structures called “Cell Junctions” that were first thought to only provide adhesion between neighbouring
cells or adhesion between a cell and the extracellular matrix in might have other functions. These
functions were vital to metastasis - the process of the spreading of cancer cells to a secondary site
within the host’s body. The newly discovered functions included the cell junctions’ ability to reform and
break, and to control cell growth and motility as a response to environmental forces surrounding them.

Drosophila was used as model specimen because it is a powerful genetic model system and because of
the discovery of a new tumor suppressor gene called “scribble” or “SCRIB” that is a component of
intercellular septate junctions. Drosophila or fruit fly is also often associated with the understanding of
the advances in human diseases, such as cancer.

Mutations in the tumor suppressor genes “scribble” lead to uncontrolled cell growth and eventually
result to tumor formation. The different properties of cadherins in adherens junctions and their
associated proteins might also dictate whether a breast cancer cell will spread. It was also discovered
that a cell-cell junction molecule that connects cells to extracellular matrix can interact with an actin-
binding protein and even the nucleus. All these results show that cell junctions have unexpected
regulatory functions in controlling cell motility and mutations in their parts might be a key to
understanding tumor formation and cancer progression better.