Synaptic cell adhesion goes functional

A growing number of candidate genes has been implicated in linking the two sides of a synapse but definitive proof of a specific role for many of them is still scarce. Exploiting the vast amount of sequence data, a novel family of homophilic synaptic cell-adhesion molecules (SynCAMs) has now been identified in mice. SynCAMs are evolutionarily related to invertebrate immunoglobulin-like (Ig)-domain proteins and they promote the formation and differentiation of functional synapses in vitro.