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Gap Junctions serve as a communication portholes to the rest of the body. Through gap junctions, cells can communicate with each other, and share chemicals. To fully understand gap junctions, it is necessary to first understand how the cells are held together. Pages on desmosomes, and tight junctions would help this. In brief, they are proteins that have roots in two separate cell's membranes, holding them together. The gap junctions do not actually hold the membranes together, but merely serve as a "pipe" so to speak. In this way, the cells can attach, and communicate, through the transfer of chemicals. The gap junctions are not actually the physical proteins that serve as the "pipes". These pipes are called connexins. The gap junctions are clusters of these cell-to- cell channels. The proteins are similar in physical appearance to the carrier proteins that open the cells up to the extracellular fluid. The gap junction's channels only allow for the passage of molecules underneath 300 MW (a unit of measurement) to pass through. This means that Anything smaller than a large protein can get through.
The gap junctions, do not really work with other oranelles other than the cell membranes. It is believed that when being developed, young cells communicate with other cells, through gap junctions, to determine their ultimate fate. As I mentioned above, gap junctions do however depend on the proteins that physically hold the cells together, because without them, the cells would not be able to stay together for the gap junctions to function.
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Currents through delayed K channels. Ed. 1996. Rutgers U. 9/13/96.
http://lifesci.rutgers.edu/~auerbach/mplec4/sld006.htm
Gap Junctions. Ed. 1997. Colorado State U. 1/15/97.
http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hbooks/cmb/cells/pmemb/junctions_g.html
Laing, Jamie.Gap Junctions - JGLaing.
http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Thinktank/2508/Science.html
What is gap junction? Ed. 1998. Michigan State U. 11/22/98.
http://www.phd.msu.edu/kang/GJIC.html