Our new article is out this week in Biochemical Society Transactions [link]. In this focused review by Natasha Chavda, Bilge Sari, Fawziah Asiri and myself, we discuss new findings and the current thinking relating to how laminin polymers in basement membranes help to define the characteristics of these important extracellular structures.
What we’ve tried to do is integrate new discoveries relating to the LaNt proteins and to netrin-4 which have changed the way we think about laminins. We highlight some of the questions that are coming to the fore in light of these recent discoveries.
Laminins influence many (all?) aspects of human life, the work described has implications for human genetic disease, tumour progression and metastasis, development, and are relevant for bioengineering of tissue replacements.
We think the paper should be valuable for anyone who wants to get up to speed rapidly in this intriguing area, and will help others in our field spot a new direction for their work.
The journal is run by Portland Press, which is the publishing arm of the Biochemical Society. Profits from the journal are returned to the society where they are spent on training events, educational activities, public engagement, scientific meetings, awards and grants. Publishing to make the publishing houses richer is still, sadly, required in science; however, it always feels better where the publishing model directly benefits the community.
The article is available here, free to all.
LaNts and Laminins 
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