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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2015 Oct 30.
Published in final edited form as: Physiol Rev. 2010 Jan;90(1):179–206. doi: 10.1152/physrev.00034.2009

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

The nomenclature for the different types of intercellular channels that can form a gap junction. The gap junction comprises many closely packed cell-to-cell channels connecting the cytoplasm of adjacent cells. Each channel is formed by the docking of two hemichannels, or connexons, one in each of the two cells. Each hemichannel is composed of six subunit connexins. The connexin family of proteins includes many isoforms that can intermix to form hemichannels and intact channels, as shown in the figure.