By Science News
New bond in the basement
Basements house hidden treasures
— including a chemical bond never before seen in living things.
Scientists have discovered that collagen fibers in the basement
membrane — a tough, structural layer of cells that surrounds most
tissues in animals — are connected by a sulfur-nitrogen bond (SN: 9/26/09, p. 5).
Basement membranes anchor cells, provide a framework for developing
tissues and blood vessels, and help regulate cell behavior and
signaling. The discovery could help researchers understand
collagen-related diseases and could lead to new tricks for attacking
tumors, which get much of their heft from the basement membrane matrix.
This bond “is the molecular fastener,” says Billy Hudson, director of
the Center for Matrix Biology at Vanderbilt University School of
Medicine in Nashville and leader of the new work. The team’s analyses
suggest that the bond may have developed early in animal evolution,
sometime after the sponge and jellyfish lineages diverged.