The assembly of intermediate filament (IF) arrays involves the recruitment of a complex set of
cell-type-specific IF-associated proteins. Some of them are integral membrane proteins …

Desmosomes have long been regarded as essential'spot welds' that externally glue together
cells within a tissue, and internally anchor the cytoskeletal network of intermediate filaments …

Complete genomic sequence is known for two multicellular eukaryotes, the nematode
Caenorhabditis elegans and the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, and it will soon be known …

At vertebrate neuromuscular junctions (NMJs), Agrin plays pivotal roles in synapse
development, but molecules that activate synapse formation at central synapses are largely …

NUANCE (NUcleus and ActiN Connecting Element) was identified as a novel protein with an
α-actinin-like actin-binding domain. A human 21.8 kb cDNA of NUANCE spreads over 373 …

Signaling between neurons requires highly specialized subcellular structures, including
dendrites and axons. Dendrites exhibit diverse morphologies yet little is known about the …

Plakins are large multi-domain molecules that have various functions to link cytoskeletal
elements together and to connect them to junctional complexes. Plakins were first identified …

Dendrite development is an important and unsolved problem in neuroscience. The nervous
system is composed of a vast number of neurons with strikingly different morphology …

Recent technical advances have made possible the visualization and genetic manipulation
of individual dendritic trees. These studies have led to the identification and characterization …

We show that the Drosophila gene rhea, isolated because its wing blister phenotype is
typical of mutants affecting integrin function, encodes talin. Embryos deficient in talin have …