Suzuki S, Sano K, Tanihara H
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Southern California, School of Medicine, Los Angeles 90033.
Cell Regul. 1991 Apr;2(4):261-70. doi: 10.1091/mbc.2.4.261.
To examine the diversity of the cadherin family, we isolated cDNAs from brain and retina cDNA preparations with the aid of polymerase chain reaction. The products obtained included cDNAs for two of three known cadherins as well as eight distinct cDNAs, of which deduced amino acid sequences show significant similarity with the known cadherin sequences. Larger cDNA clones were isolated from human cDNA libraries for six of the eight new molecules. The deduced amino acid sequences show that the overall structure of these molecules is very similar to that of the known cadherins, indicating that these molecules are new members of the cadherin family. We have tentatively designated these cadherins as cadherin-4 through -11. The new molecules, with the exception of cadherin-4, exhibit features that distinguish them as a group from previously cloned cadherins; they may belong to a new subfamily of cadherins. Northern blot analysis showed that most of these cadherins are expressed mainly in brain, although some are expressed in other tissues as well. These findings show that the cadherin family of adhesion molecules is much larger than previously thought, and suggest that the new cadherins may play an important role in cell-cell interactions within the central nervous system.
为了研究钙黏蛋白家族的多样性，我们借助聚合酶链反应从脑和视网膜的互补DNA（cDNA）制剂中分离出了cDNA。获得的产物包括三种已知钙黏蛋白中两种的cDNA以及八个不同的cDNA，其推导的氨基酸序列与已知钙黏蛋白序列显示出显著的相似性。从人cDNA文库中分离出了八个新分子中六个的更大的cDNA克隆。推导的氨基酸序列表明这些分子的整体结构与已知钙黏蛋白的结构非常相似，这表明这些分子是钙黏蛋白家族的新成员。我们暂时将这些钙黏蛋白命名为钙黏蛋白-4至-11。除钙黏蛋白-4外，这些新分子具有将它们作为一个群体与先前克隆的钙黏蛋白区分开来的特征；它们可能属于钙黏蛋白的一个新亚家族。Northern印迹分析表明，这些钙黏蛋白中的大多数主要在脑中表达，尽管有些也在其他组织中表达。这些发现表明，黏附分子的钙黏蛋白家族比以前认为的要大得多，并表明新的钙黏蛋白可能在中枢神经系统内的细胞间相互作用中发挥重要作用。
