Soluble VE-cadherin: not just a marker of endothelial permeability

Rapidly dividing tumors, embryos, and wounded tissues require more oxygen than usual, lowering the oxygen concentration in the blood. At low oxygen or hypoxic conditions, an oxygen-sensitive transcription factor called the hypoxia-inducible factor 1 or HIF1 is activated. HIF1 is a dimeric protein of alpha (ɑ) and beta (β) subunits.  Under optimal oxygen conditions, HIF1β is present in the nucleus while HIF1ɑ remains in the cytosol. HIF1ɑ is hydroxylated by prolyl...

Cell adhesion is  an essential aspect of multicellularity. While stable cell interactions usually occur between cells of the same type, transient cell interactions occur between cells of different tissue types, such as between neutrophils and endothelial cells. Selectins are one class of cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) that bind carbohydrate ligands to form transient cell adhesion. They are rod-like proteins with a long extracellular part of variable length ending with the lectin domain,...

The cadherins were one of the first cell adhesion molecules discovered; the term “cadherins”   is based on their calcium-dependent adhering properties. The first cadherins discovered on the epithelial, neuronal, and placental cells were named E-cadherin, P-cadherin, and N-cadherin, respectively. These classical cadherins share sequence and structural similarities. Other cadherins, including those involved in cell signaling, are grouped into non-classical cadherins. This...