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Intercellular channels in animals

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Abstract

Gap junctions are considered to serve a similar function in all multicellular animals (Metazoa). Two unrelated protein families are involved in this function: connexins, which are found only in chordates, and pannexins, which are present in the genomes of both chordates and invertebrates. Recent sequence data from different organisms show important exceptions to this simplified scheme. It looks as if Chordate lancelet has only pannexins and no connexins in its genome. New data indicate that some metazoans have neither connexins nor pannexins and use other unidentified proteins to form gap junctions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, 127994, Russia

    Yu. V. Panchin

  2. Belozersky Institute of Physicochemical Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia

    Yu. V. Panchin

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  1. Yu. V. Panchin
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Correspondence to Yu. V. Panchin.

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Original Russian Text © Yu. V. Panchin, 2011, published in Biofizika, 2011, Vol. 56, No. 3, pp. 481–488.

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Panchin, Y.V. Intercellular channels in animals. BIOPHYSICS 56, 457–463 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0006350911030225

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