Department of Biomedical Sciences, BRIC, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
J Physiol Pharmacol. 2009 Oct;60 Suppl 4:31-8.
Syndecans are the only family of transmembrane heparan sulphate proteoglycans. Invertebrates all appear to have one Syndecan core protein, but in mammals there are four. Examination of the core protein sequences shows that the cytoplasmic domains are the most conserved. This suggests that Syndecans make important interactions and/or signalling contributions. It has been established that all syndecans can interact with proteins of the actin-associated cytoskeleton, but details of signalling have been harder to ascertain. However, it appears that Syndecans can signal, primarily to the cytoskeleton, and the details are reviewed here. Only for vertebrate syndecan-4 is there substantial detail, and it remains a challenge to dissect the functions and signalling of other vertebrate and invertebrate syndecans.
黏附素是唯一的跨膜硫酸乙酰肝素蛋白聚糖家族。所有的无脊椎动物似乎都有一个黏附素核心蛋白，但在哺乳动物中有四个。对核心蛋白序列的检查表明，细胞质结构域是最保守的。这表明黏附素可以进行重要的相互作用和/或信号传递。已经确定所有黏附素都可以与肌动蛋白相关的细胞骨架蛋白相互作用，但信号传递的细节更难以确定。然而，黏附素似乎可以进行信号传递，主要是向细胞骨架传递信号，这里将对此进行综述。只有脊椎动物黏附素-4有大量的详细信息，而解析其他脊椎动物和无脊椎动物黏附素的功能和信号传递仍然是一个挑战。
