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Apicobasal polarity is a type of cell polarity specific to epithelial cells, referring to a specialised apical membrane facing the outside of the body or lumen of internal cavities, and a specialised basolateral membrane localised at the opposite side, away from the lumen. The two domains are often physically separated by adherens junctions complexes.
Using low-input lipidomics in mouse and human embryos, Zhang, Shui, Li and colleagues find that lipid unsaturation increases with development towards the blastocyst stage. They further show that lipid desaturases contribute to successful embryo implantation.
The multidomain polarity protein Scribble (Scrib) binds the cell adhesion receptor TMIGD1 and Scrib’s interaction with TMIGD1 recruits Scrib to the lateral membrane of polarized epithelial cells.
Galenza et al. show that basal stem cell progeny seamlessly integrate into a physiologically active barrier epithelium by gestating their future apical surface in a sheltering niche created by a transient occluding junction.
In polycystic kidney disease (PKD), fluid-filled cysts arise from tubules. Here the authors show that subjecting organoids to fluid shear stress in a PKD-on-a-chip microphysiological system promotes cyst expansion via an absorptive pathway.
Functional single-cell liver hemi-canaliculi have been generated in a synthetic microenvironment using a reductionist approach. It is shown that the interaction between the extracellular matrix and static cadherin is sufficient to develop an apicobasal polarity independently of the contact with neighbouring cells.
In this Journal Club, Audrey Williams and Sally Horne-Badovinac highlight the importance of studying the basal cell surface and its dynamics to understand epithelial cell behaviours and tissue rearrangements.
Tangential expansion of neural stem cells in the mammalian neocortex increases the number of cortical columns. A new study shows that neural stem cells that become detached from the apical surface during division regenerate an apical endfoot to ensure tangential expansion in the early stage but later lose this ability when radial expansion occurs.
A recent study published inNature Cell Biologyhas shown that tumour spheres that maintain an inverted epithelial architecture originate from primary colorectal cancers and can collectively invade the peritoneum, initiating metastasis.
