The laminins

摘要

The laminins are a family of trimeric basement membrane glycoproteins containing an alpha, beta and gamma chain. At least eleven family members have been described and others are likely to exist, many in tissue-specific locations. Five alpha, four beta and three gamma chains have been described further suggesting additional isoforms. Laminins are very biologically active with laminin-l (composed ofα|β|γ| chains) being the most studied. Laminin-l increases cell adhesion, migration, growth, differentiation, neurite outgrowth, protease production, and malignancy. The response of the cell is dependent on the cell type. A number of active sites on laminin including cryptic domains have been defined using protease-derived fragments, recombinant material and synthetic peptides. Various diseases involving mutations, deletions and autoantibodies to laminins have been identified demonstrating the important functions of this family of molecules in both development and disease. These studies demonstrate that the structural diversity of the laminins allows for many highly specialized functions .