Area composita

The area composita is a special heart muscle specific mixed type adhering junction connecting single cardiomyocytes. They are responsible for the force transmission during muscle contraction and are believed to be the main component of the mammalian cardiac intercalated discs (see Franke et al. 2006; Pieperhoff and Franke, 2007; Pieperhoff and Franke, 2008; see also Goossens et al., 2007). Area composita structures consist of typical desmosomal in addition to typical fascia adhaerens proteins, whereas in epithelia both molecular classes show distinct and mutual exclusive localizations and both structures are also well separated.