The importance of keeping in touch: regulation of cell-cell contact in the exocrine pancreas

A number of recent reports in the literature (using cancer cell lines, metastatic fibroblasts, epithelial cells) have described a role for tyrosine phosphorylation of adherens junction proteins in the perturbation of cell-cell contacts. 4, 16- 18 Corollary evidence has been provided by studies demonstrating that a dephosphorylated state of cell adhesion proteins (via the action of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs)) is essential for the maintenance of an intact cell adhesion complex. 19, 20 Using a number of elegant experimental protocols, Schnekenburger and colleagues 13 have been able to describe a time course of the changes occurring in the adhesion complexes of acinar cells during the development (at one hour after caerulein injection) and resorption (at 48 hours after caerulein injection) of oedema in acute pancreatitis.