Neutrophils cross epithelial sheets to reach inflamed mucosal surfaces by migrating along
the paracellular route. To avoid breakdown of the epithelial barrier, this process requires
coordinated opening and closing of tight junctions, the most apical intercellular junctions in
epithelia. To determine the function of epithelial tight junction proteins in this process, we
analyzed neutrophil migration across monolayers formed by stably transfected epithelial
cells expressing wild-type and mutant occludin, a membrane protein of tight junctions with …