Tight junction proteins and signal transduction pathways in hepatocytes
Takashi Kojima1, Masaki Murata1, Toshinobu Yamamoto1, Mengdong Lan1,2, Masafumi Imamura1,3, Seiichi Son1,3, Ken-ichi Takano1,4, Hiroshi Yamaguchi1,3, Tatsuya Ito1,3, Satoshi Tanaka1, Hideki Chiba1, Koichi Hirata3 and Norimasa Sawada3
Departments of 1Pathology, 3Surgery and 4Otolaryngology Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, Sapporo, Japan and 2Division of Molecular Pathology, Institute of Infection Diseases, Beijing Ditan Hospital, Beijing, China.
Offprint requests to: Takashi Kojima, Ph.D., Department of Pathology, Sapporo Medical University School of Medicine, S1, W17, Sapporo 060-8556, Japan. e-mail: ktakashi@sapmed.ac.jp
Summary. Tight junctions of hepatocytes play crucial roles in the barrier to keep bile in bile canaliculi away from the blood circulation, which we call the blood-billiary-barrier (Kojima et al., 2003). Tight junction proteins of hepatocytes are regulated by various cytokines and growth factors via distinct signal transduction pathways. They are also considered to participate in signal transduction pathways that regulate epithelial cell proliferation, gene expression, differentiation and morphogenesis. This review focuses on recent findings about the relationship between tight junction proteins and signal transduction pathways in hepatocytes. Histol Histopathol 24, 1463-1472 (2009)
Key words: Hepatocyte, Tight junction, Signal transduction, Cytokine, Growth factor
DOI: 10.14670/HH-24.1463