Involvement of Vinculin in Contact-induced Cytoskeletal Interactions

Much progress has been made r cently in studies on the adhesive properties of cultured cells. The interest in this field was motivated by two major lines of ob-servation. First, it has been shown that a large number of cellular physiologic processes depend on the for-mation of contacts between the cells and extracellular substances. This phenomenon, which is usually re-ferred to as anchorage dependence, i ludes activities such as control of cell growth and differentiation, the formation of intercellular junctions, and the activation of several metabolic pathways (Stoker and ONeill 1968; Hay and Meier 1976; Folkman and Moscona