Genetic analyses of Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans have yielded invaluable insights into many basic biological processes, perhaps most notably in the fields of receptor tyrosine kinase signaling and apoptosis. In this issue of The Journal of Cell Biology, the identification of UNC-112 as a new cytoskeletal component that may function in the assembly of cell–extracellular matrix adhesions in the muscle of C. elegans is described (Rogalski et al. 2000). Since the components of dense bodies of the C. elegans muscle are similar to the components of focal adhesions in non-muscle cells, this finding may have broader implications for the assembly of cell–extracellular matrix adhesions.
In non-muscle cells, the assembly of focal adhesions has been extensively analyzed using mammalian fibroblasts. The integrins, which are transmembrane heterodimers, are major components of focal adhesions (Burridge and...
