Connective tissue transduction

Relationship Between Mechanochemical Transduction and Connective Tissue Diseases... 

Connective tissue in the vascular system plays an important role in maintenance of the intact vascular wall. Vitamins E and C influence the extracellular matrix (ECM) by their antioxidant functions. They bind to specific enzymes and act as cofactors and regulators with consequent modulation of vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) signal transduction and gene expression. The ability of vitamins E and C to influence VSMC proliferation, differentiation, and ECM production is important in the maintenance of intact vascular wall and in the repair of atherosclerotic lesions. Actively proliferating cells, but not quiescent cells, are susceptible to ascorbic acid, which inhibits cell division and promotes necrosis through its action on S-phase progression. 

Figure 3. Proposed difference in GSD between normal and tumor cells. A Normal epithelial cells in epithelial tissue (panel 1) and fibroblasts in connective tissue (panel 3) are characterized by polarized structure, i.e. GSD (indicated by black spots) is localized on the free (apical) surface or at the lateral surface where one cell contacts the next, but not on the surface in contact with basement membrane (BM) or extracellular matrix (ECM). In cancer cells, polarized structure is lost, i.e. GSD is distributed on all surfaces (panels 2, 4). B GSD is qualitatively different in normal cells (panel 1) compared to cancer cells (2). In normal cells, types of transducers (TD) associated with GSD (G) are limited, and signal transduction through cell-cell interaction is limited or inhibitory. In cancer cells, many types of transducer (TDa, TDb, TDc) are associated with GSD, which are larger than those in normal cells, and cell-cell interaction induces stimulatory signaling to enhance cell motility and proliferation.

Protein kinases C (PKC) catalyze protein phosphorylations, a pivotal step in signal generation and transduction in cells. PKC s are widely distributed in tissue and organs (73). They constitute a family of enzymes with at least seven isoforms. Nearly 100 PKC s are known and a large number of receptors, growth factors and products of oncogenes are PKC s. In connection with the discussion of nAChR s it may be noted that PKC is involved in the regulation of this ion channel (74). 

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