Role and Importance
Due to its diverse nature and composition, the ECM can serve many functions, such as providing support, segregating tissues from one another, and regulating intercellular communication. The ECM regulates a cell's dynamic behavior. In addition, it sequesters a wide range of cellular growth factors, and acts as a local depot for them. Changes in physiological conditions can trigger protease activities that cause local release of such depots. This allows the rapid and local growth factor-mediated activation of cellular functions, without de novo synthesis.
Formation of the extracellular matrix is essential for processes like growth, wound healing and fibrosis. An understanding of ECM structure and composition also helps in comprehending the complex dynamics of tumor invasion and metastasis in cancer biology as metastasis often involves the destruction of extracellular matrix by enzymes such as serine and threonine proteases and matrix metalloproteinases.
Read more about this topic: Extracellular Matrix
Famous quotes containing the words role and/or importance:
“Today, only a fool would offer herself as the singular role model for the Good Mother. Most of us know not to tempt the fates. The moment I felt sure I had everything under control would invariably be the moment right before the principal called to report that one of my sons had just driven somebody’s motorcycle through the high school gymnasium.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“There are secret articles in our treaties with the gods, of more importance than all the rest, which the historian can never know.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)