Bioessays. 1992 Nov;14(11):743-8. doi: 10.1002/bies.950141104.

Phylogenetic analysis of the cadherin superfamily.

BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology

Y Pouliot

PMID: 1365887 DOI: 10.1002/bies.950141104

Abstract

Cadherins are a multigene family of proteins which mediate homophilic calcium-dependent cell adhesion and are thought to play an important role in morphogenesis by mediating specific intercellular adhesion. Different lines of experimental evidence have recently indicated that the site responsible for mediating adhesive interactions is localized to the first extracellular domain of cadherin. Based upon an analysis of the sequence of this domain, I show that cadherins can be classified into three groups with distinct structural features. Furthermore, using this sequence information a phylogenetic tree relating the known cadherins was assembled. This is the first such tree to be published for the cadherins. One cadherin subtype, neural cadherin (N-cadherin), shows very little sequence divergence between species, whereas all other cadherin subtypes show more substantial divergence, suggesting that selective pressure upon this domain may be greater for N-cadherin than for other cadherins. Phylogenetic analysis also suggests that the gene duplications which established the main branches leading to the different cadherin subtypes occurred very early in their history. These duplications set the stage for the diversified superfamily we now observe.

Similar articles

Cited by

Substances

• Cadherins

MeSH terms

• Amino Acid Sequence
• Animal Population Groups / genetics
• Animals
• Cadherins / chemistry
• Cadherins / classification
• Cadherins / genetics
• Cell Adhesion
• Humans
• Molecular Sequence Data
• Morphogenesis
• Multigene Family*
• Mutation
• Phylogeny*
• Protein Structure, Tertiary
• Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid
• Sequence Alignment
• Sequence Homology, Amino Acid

Publication Types

• Journal Article
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
• Review

LinkOut - more resources

• Full Text Sources
  • Wiley
• Research Materials
  • NCI CPTC Antibody Characterization Program