Area composita

The Area composita is a heart-specific cell connection, which is responsible for the transmission of power between individual heart muscle cells during contraction and is a major component of the so-called intercalated disks. It consists, inter alia, typical of desmosomal cadherins (DSG -2 DSC -2) and typical cadherins Streifendesmosom - (N -cadherin ) and the so-called plaque or adapter proteins (such as desmoplakin, plakophilin -2, beta -catenin, etc.) in which the filaments cytoskeleton tie. So all these components do not come in the mammalian heart in separate structures such as desmosomes in epithelial and Streifendesmosomen before, but are in the area composita mixed in protein complexes.