Cross-Talk between Hemidesmosomes and Focal Adhesions: A Primer for Wound Healing, Blistering Skin Disease, and Skin Aging.

Hemidesmosomes and focal adhesions attach keratinocytes to the dermis and act as bidirectional signaling centers to control epidermal renewal. Pora and colleagues (Pora et al., 2019) demonstrate that in migrating primary human keratinocytes, hemidesmosomes cluster as ordered arrays consisting of multiple chevrons, flanked by actin-associated focal adhesions. These and related findings have implications for wound healing, cancer invasion, blistering skin diseases, and skin aging.