W. TH. DAEMS This volume contains the papers presented at a Boerhaave Course for Post graduate Education on The cell-biological aspects of disease: the plasma membrane and lysosomes. One of the purposes of this introduction is to explain the reasons for this choice of subject. The first question which might be asked - why a postgraduate course on the cell biological aspects of disease was considered neccessary - is not difficult to answer: the impact of the basic sciences on medicine is im measurably strong, and among these sciences cell biology has contributed immensely to the advances made in medicine during recent decades. It has provided clues leading to general insights into etiology and pathogenesis as well as to the development of diagnostic tools and a basis for therapeutic methods. These insights derived mainly from the still-increasing body of knowledge about the architecture of cells. Initially, this knowledge arose from the notion that cells are either simply bags full of enzymes or complex sponge like structures in which all organelles are permanently interconnected (Fig. 1). Later, this notion was replaced by a highly schematized picture of the cell as an essentially two-compartment structure (Fig. 2) in which cell organelles are discrete units separated from each other by membranes, enabling each organelle to maintain an internal microenvironment with optimal conditions for its specific metabolic pro cesses.

Inhalt

1. Cell biology and medicine: an introduction.- 2. Recent views on the structure and function of the plasma membrane.- 3. Plasma membrane structure as revealed with freeze-fracture methods.- 4. Functional aspects of plasma membrane studies: growth regulation by ionic fluxes.- 5. Some structural and functional alterations in tumor plasma membranes.- 6. Morphology and cytochemistry of the cell coat.- 7. Receptors in diseased states.- 8. The mechanisms of cell-mediated cytotoxicity.- 9. Cell biology of subplasmalemmal filaments.- 10. Regeneration dynamics of the plasmalemma and its invaginations.- 11. Pathology of cell motility.- 12. Endocytosis and the lysosomal apparatus: recent developments.- 13. Morphology of endocytic mechanisms.- 14. The role of receptors in endocytosis.- 15. Pathology of endocytosis with special reference to lipoproteins.- 16. Visualization and characterization of LDL-binding sites on fibroblast plasma membranes.- 17. Some aspects of the cell biology of phagosome-lysosome interactions in macrophages.- 18. Pathology of phagosomes and lysosomes during mammalian cell-microbe interactions.- 19. The role of lysosomes in intracellular digestion: synthesis of acid hydrolases and packaging in primary lysosomes.- 20. Pathology of lysosomal digestion.- 21. Liposomes: interaction with the biological milieu and implications for their use in biology and medicine.- 22. Fundamental studies on the cellular uptake of liposomes.- 23. The use of drug-carrier conjugates in therapy.- 24. Cell biology and health care.- 25. Limits of our ability to understand living structures.