Biology as Poetry: Cell Biology

Bacteriophage Ecology Group

Gap Junction

Connections between adjacent animal through which cytoplasm flows.

Gap junctions literally make the cytoplasms of adjacent
cells continuous. The expands intracellular signalling to also between cells, increasing coordination of physiology and behavior between these cells. Gap junctions for example are found between the cells of heart muscles and also serve as the basis of what are known as electrical synapses between neurons.

See by contrast desmosomes and tight junctions, which also are connections found between animal cells.

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