Tissue Recombinants to Study Extracellular Matrix Targeting to Basement Membranes

The basement membrane that separates an epithelium or other parenchymal tissues from the connective tissue has been postulated for a long time to be of epithelial origin. Because of difficulties in interpreting results obtained mostly by autoradiographic labeling at the light microscopy level, new analytical tools and models were important to develop. In particular, Lipton (1 ) using an in vitro coculture system was probably the first to provide evidence for a dual origin of the basement membrane: indeed a distinct basement membrane structure developed in myoblast cultures only after the addition of muscle fibroblasts.