31 Organization of cells into tissues
Tissues
Many of the cells of the body are grouped together to form tissues, structures or organs where they function collectively. These may range from a simple epithelial sheet, which separates one compartment from another, to a complex organ such as the kidney, responsible for removing waste products from the blood and maintaining salt and water homeostasis. The initial development and subsequent maintenance of these structures requires careful coordination of the growth, replication and death of the cells from which they are made.
Cell–cell and cell–matrix junctions
In order to maintain the structural integrity of tissues and to help individual cells function in an organized and concerted manner, adhesion molecules on one cell link to similar molecules on adjacent cells, or to the extracellular matrix (ECM), forming cellular junctions. There are several types of cell junction (Fig. 3.31.1); tight, anchoring adherens junctions between cells, focal adherens junctions between cells and the ECM, desmosomes, hemi-desmosomes and gap junctions (Ch. 30
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