Home > Term: hemidesmosome
hemidesmosome
1) An anchoring junction of the cell to a non-cellular substrate, similar in morphology to halves of desmosomes. They are composed of specialized areas of the plasma membrane where intermediate filaments bind on the cytoplasmic face to the transmembrane linkers, integrins, via intracellular attachment proteins, while the extracellular domain of the integrins binds to extracellular matrix proteins.
2) A specialization of the plasma membrane of an epithelial cell that is similar to half a desmosome and serves to connect the basal surface of the cell to the basement membrane.
- Part of Speech: noun
- Industry/Domain: Medical
- Category: Human genome
- Company: National Library of Medicine
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Creator
- Max Bryant
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