Abstract
In formulating Cell Theory, Schleiden(1) wrote in 1838: “Every higher organism is an aggregate of fully circumscribed and self-contained unit beings, the cells.” This basic tenet has been extraordinarily fruitful and influential in biology and medicine, and in many aspects its usefulness continues unabated. However, since the mid-1960s it has become clear that cellular circumscription is generally not complete; a wide variety of cells turned out to be interconnected by membrane channels at their junction.(2,3) Small molecules pass freely from one cell interior to another through these junctional channels so that the connected cell ensemble, rather than the single cell, is the unit in many cellular functions; there is cell autonomy only in respect to the larger molecules that do not permeate the junctional channels.
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Loewenstein, W.R. (1978). Cell-to-Cell Communication. In: Andreoli, T.E., Hoffman, J.F., Fanestil, D.D. (eds) Physiology of Membrane Disorders. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3958-8_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3958-8_18
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