Gicerin, a cell adhesion molecule, participates in the histogenesis of retina

Abstract

Gicerin is a novel cell adhesion molecule that belongs to the immunoglobulin superfamily. Gicerin protein adheres to neurite outgrowth factor (NOF), an extracellular matrix protein in the laminin family, and also exhibits homophilic adhesion. Heterophilic adhesion of gicerin to NOF is thought to play an active role in neurite outgrowth of developing retinal cells in vitro. In this study, we examined the adhesion activity of gicerin during the retinal development of Japanese quail using an antibody directed against gicerin, to elucidate the biological importance of gicerin in retinal histogenesis. Immunohistochemical and Western blot analysis showed that gicerin was highly expressed in the developing retina but suppressed in the mature retina. The aggregation of neural retinal cells from 5‐day embryonic quail retina was significantly inhibited when incubated with a polyclonal antibody to gicerin, suggesting that gicerin protein participates in the adhesion of neural retinal cells of the developing retina. Furthermore, histogenesis of retina both in the organ cultures and in ovo embryos was severely disrupted by incubation with a gicerin antibody. These findings provide evidence that gicerin plays an important role in retinal histogenesis. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Neurobiol 33: 769–780, 1997

Gicerin, a cell adhesion molecule, promotes the metastasis of lymphoma cells of the chicken

“…Recently, we have isolated a rat homologue of chicken gicerin and found the highest homology between gicerin and human MUC18/MCAM/CD146, which was identified as a melanoma cell surface antigen (Sers et al 1993;Shih 1999;Taira et al 2003). Gicerin is expressed during developmental stages of neural tissues and promotes cell migration and neurite extension to form a neural network (Taniura et al 1991;Kato et al 1992;Taira et al 1993;Tsukamoto et al 1997bTsukamoto et al , 1999bTsukamoto et al , 2001a. This molecule is also expressed in other non-neural tissues: in the epithelia of the trachea, kidney and oviduct.…”

Gicerin, an Ig‐superfamily cell adhesion molecule, promotes the invasive and metastatic activities of a mouse fibroblast cell line

“…Our previous studies have shown that gicerin is overexpressed in some sporadic tumors including nephroblastomas and oviductal adenocarcinomas, and functionally its binding properties can promote the aggregations and migration of the cancer cells in vitro systems (Tsukamoto et al, 1998, 1999). From these findings, we have proposed that gicerin is a potential effecter for tumorigenesis as well as for normal development (Tsukamoto et al, 1996, 1997, 2001). However, the functional role of gicerin in tumor progression using in vivo systems has not been investigated.…”

Involvement of gicerin, a cell adhesion molecule, in the portal metastasis of rat colorectal adenocarcinoma cells

“…Gicerin interacts with itself, as well as with a laminin-like molecule, and probably with other unidentified protein (5). These adhesive activities of gicerin promote the in vitro migration of embryonic neural cells and primary oviductal cancer cells (4,13,18,19). In addition, the expression of HEMCAM, which is the same molecule as gicerin, in mouse fibroblasts can down-regulate the maturation of ß-1 integrins and decrease the integrin-dependent cell adhesion of laminin ß-1, fibronectin and vitronectin (20).…”