Desmosomal Attachment Plaque

The picture above shows the desmosomal attachment plaque and highlights the placement of the desmoplakins and plakoglobins.


This week in Histology class, we discussed epithelial tissue. One of the terms I was unfamiliar with was "desmosomal attachment plaque." Upon reading this word, it is obvious that this term is related to desmosomes, which are part of the anchoring junctions that participate in cell to cell communication in epithelial tissue. The desmosomal attachment plaque, however, is "a disc-shaped structure consisting of very dense material on the cytoplasmic side of the plasma membrane of each adjoining cell." This structure also "anchors intermediate filaments, which play a role in dissipating physical forces throughout the cell from the attachment site. Each attachment plaque is composed of several constitutive proteins, mainly desmoplakins and plakoglobins, which are capable of anchoring the intermediate filaments." "Desmoplakins" and "plakoglobins" were also unfamiliar to me until I encountered them this week in our textbook, along with "desmosomal attachment plaque." The desmosomal attachment plaque, then, is really a structure on the cytomplasmic side of the plasma membrane that anchors intermediate filaments, and desmoplakins and plakoglobins are the proteins associated with this structure that anchor these intermediate filaments.


The textual information above was taken from the following reference: 
Ross, Michael H., and Wojciech Pawlina. "Anchoring Junctions." Histology: A Text and Atlas: With Correlated Cell and Molecular Biology. 6th ed. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Health, 2011. 131. Print.


The pictorial information above was taken from the following reference:
http://heart.bmj.com/content/97/7/530/F1.large.jpg