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Barry James Thompson (born 1978) is an Australian and British developmental biologist and cancer biologist.Thompson is known for identifying genes, proteins and mechanisms involved in epithelial polarity, morphogenesis and cell signaling via the Wnt and Hippo signaling pathways, which have key roles in human cancer.
Epithelial polarity is one example of the cell polarity that is a fundamental feature of many types of cells. Epithelial cells feature distinct 'apical', 'lateral' and 'basal' plasma membrane domains. Epithelial cells connect to one another via their lateral membranes to form epithelial sheets that line cavities and surfaces throughout the ...
Mechanistically, the human homolog is a scaffold protein linked to cellular differentiation centered on the regulation of epithelial as well as neuronal morphogenesis. Deficiency in SCRIB impairs many aspects of cell polarity and cell movement .
[22] [23] In 2003 the Mostov group reported the first comprehensive account linking branching morphogenesis with hallmarks of apical-basal polarity. [24] This work established that MDCK cells do not lose contacts with neighbors during the onset of branching morphogenesis, but that canonical markers of cell polarity are transiently lost.
Epithelial cells also exhibit planar cell polarity, in which specialized structures are orientated within the plane of the epithelial sheet. Some examples of planar cell polarity include the scales of fish being oriented in the same direction and similarly the feathers of birds, the fur of mammals, and the cuticular projections (sensory hairs ...
The protein encoded by the VANGL2 gene is a membrane protein involved in the regulation of planar cell polarity, especially in the stereociliary bundles of the cochlea. The encoded protein transmits directional signals to individual cells or groups of cells in epithelial sheets. This protein is also involved in the development of the neural ...
Planar cell polarity (PCP) is the protein-mediated signaling that coordinates the orientation of cells in a layer of epithelial tissue. In vertebrates, examples of mature PCP oriented tissue are the stereo-cilia bundles in the inner ear, [ 1 ] motile cilia of the epithelium, [ 2 ] and cell motility in epidermal wound healing. [ 3 ]
Unlike epithelial cells – which are stationary and characterized by an apico-basal polarity with binding by a basal lamina, tight junctions, gap junctions, adherent junctions and expression of cell-cell adhesion markers such as E-cadherin, [4] mesenchymal cells do not make mature cell-cell contacts, can invade through the extracellular matrix, and express markers such as vimentin ...