Figure 6.

(A) Effects of cell‐cell interactions of the intervertebral disc have been observed in primary human nucleus pulposus (NP) cells where promotion of cell‐cell interactions via soft substrates or N‐cadherin (CDH2) signaling leads to enhanced biosynthesis and NP marker expression. (B) Hwang et al 117 demonstrated that the ability to form rounded multi‐cell clusters is lost when CDH2 is depleted. (C) When NP cells lose the ability to form cell‐cell interactions in the absence of CDH2, there is a significant loss of expression of NP markers and (D) decreased biosynthesis, (E) which is believed to be mediated by loss of β‐catenin