Les tissus conjonctifs, de l’origine du concept à sa « mutation » en matrice extracellulaire. Application aux tissus oculaires. Contribution à l’histoire des sciences médicales

[Fiftieth anniversary of the French Society for Connective Tissue Research]

The Society was founded in 1962, at an international meeting organized at the Biomedical Institute rue des Saints-Pères, in Paris in the Department of Biochemistry headed at that time by Pr. Max F. Jayle, and published in the "Exposés Annuels de Biochimie Médicale" in 1963. At its beginnings a "Club", with a limited number of participants, it expanded rapidly into a Society, renamed recently "French Society of the Biology of Extracellular Matrix", with approximately 200 members working on a variety of subjects. Only six of these teams could present an oral report at the meeting of the Biological Society on January 18, 2012, celebrating this anniversary at the Curie Institute. A few more could send written contributions for this special issue of "Biologie Aujourd'hui". In this short introduction we shall recall some important stages of the developing connective tissue science. Besides such classical subjects, as the macromolecular components of connective tissue matrix, this discipline incorporated progressively receptors, integrins and other molecules, that mediate cell-matrix interactions.

[Theodor Huzella and the initiation of research on the interactions between cells and the extracellular matrix]

Interactions between cells and the surrounding "biomatrix", mediated by receptors as integrins or the elastin receptor is the most important topic in up to date research on connective tissues. Looking for the origin of this concept, one finds the pioneering work of Theodor Huzella, professor of histology-embryology at the Medical University of Budapest during pre-world war II decades. Using time-laps micro-cinematography in reflected light, he visualized the important role of connective tissue fibers, prepared in his laboratory, for the oriented migration of normal and malignant cells. His theoretical explanations, attributing an "active" role to the elasticity of the argyrophilic fibrous network in the coordination of cell societies, can now be reinterpreted in the light of recent work on the mechanotransduction of "messages" from the extracellular matrix to the cell inside. We propose a succinct review of Huzella's work and theories reinterpreted in the light of up-to-date knowledge on cell-matrix interactions.

Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the French society for connective tissue research. Its short history in the frame of the origin and development of this discipline

The science of connective tissues has (at least) a double origin. Collagen, their major constituent was first studied in conjunction with the leather industry. Acid mucopolysaccharides (now glycosaminoglycans) were characterised by (bio)-chemists interested in glycoconjugates. They joined mainly hospital-based rheumatology departments. Later started the study of elastin with the discovery of elastases and of connective tissue-born (structural) glycoproteins. Besides rhumatologists and leather-chemists mainly pathologists became involved in this type of research, followed closely by ophthalmology research. The first important meetings of these diverse specialists were organised under the auspices of NATO, first in Saint-Andrew's in GB in 1964 and a few years later (1969) in Santa Margareta, Italy. With the discovery of fibronectin, a "structural glycoprotein", started the study of cell-matrix interactions, reinforced by the identification of cell-receptors mediating them and the "cross-talk" between cells and matrix constituents. The first initiative to organise societies for this rapidly growing discipline was that of Ward Pigman in New York in 1961, restricted however to glycol-conjugates. Next year, in 1962 was founded the first European Connective Tissue Society in Paris: the "Club français du tissu conjonctif", which played a crucial role in the establishment of schools, laboratories, national and international meetings in the major cities of France: Paris, Lyon, Reims, Caen,Toulouse. A second European society was born in Great Britain, and at a joint meeting with the French society at the Paris Pasteur Institute, was founded in 1967 by these societies the Federation of European Connective Tissue Societies (FECTS). Their meetings, organised every second year, drained a wide attendance from all over the world. An increasing number of young scientists joined since then this branch of biomedical discipline with several international journals devoted to connective tissue research, to matrix biology. The increasing number and quality of the young generation of scientists engaged in research related to the extracellular matrix or better Biomatrix and cell-matrix interactions is a further guarantee for the continued interest in this crucial field of science at the interface of basic and medically oriented research.