Integrin receptors and hairy cell leukaemia

The ability of a cell to recognize and specifically localise within an appropriate tissue environment is essential to the proliferation and survival of that cell. The integrin family of cell-surface adhesion-receptors are essential to such tissue localisation, allowing a migrating cell to specifically recognise, localise within-, and respond to- the cellular or extracellular matrix ligands that characterise a given tissue. We have investigated how the expression and activity of integrin receptors underlies the consistent and unusual tissue distribution of the malignant B lymphocytes of hairy cell leukaemia (HCL). In this report we review our published work in this area. Our findings are then discussed within the context of current knowledge of integrin receptors and their ligands, and in relation to the clinical features of HCL.