Fine intercellular connections in development: TNTs, cytonemes, or intercellular bridges?

Olga Korenkova (1, 2) , Anna Pepe (1) , Chiara Zurzolo (1)

1 Trafic membranaire et Pathogénèse
2 Université Paris-Saclay

Intercellular communication is a fundamental property of multicellular organisms, necessary for their adequate responses to changing environment. Tunneling nanotubes (TNTs) represent a novel means of intercellular communication being a long cell-to-cell conduit. TNTs are actively formed under a broad range of stresses and are also proposed to exist under physiological conditions. Development is a physiological condition of particular interest, as it requires fine coordination. Here we discuss whether protrusions shown to exist during embryonic development of different species could be TNTs or if they represent other types of cell structure, like cytonemes or intercellular bridges, that are suggested to play an important role in development.

Mots clés: tunneling nanotubes; TNTs; cytonemes; intercellular bridges; intercellular communication

Domaines: Biologie cellulaire

Olga Korenkova, Anna Pepe, Chiara Zurzolo. Fine intercellular connections in development: TNTs, cytonemes, or intercellular bridges?. Cell Stress, 2020, 4 (2), pp.30-43. ⟨10.15698/cst2020.02.212⟩. ⟨pasteur-02940222⟩