Synaptic view of eukaryotic cell

Synapses are stable adhesive domains between two neighbouring cells of the multicellular organisms which serve for cell–cell communication as well as for information processing and storing. The synaptic concept was developed over more than 100 years specifically for neuronal cell–cell communication. In the last ten years, this concept was adapted to embrace other cell–cell communication phenomena. Here, we focus on the recently emerged phagocytic synapse and propose new endosymbiotic synapses and “intracellular organellar synapses”. All these synapses of eukaryotic cells are in a good position to explain the high capacity of eukaryotic cells for integration of diverse signalling inputs into coherent cellular behaviour.