Protocadherin alpha-2 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the PCDHA2gene.[5][6]
This gene is a member of the protocadherin alpha gene cluster, one of three related gene clusters tandemly linked on chromosome five that demonstrate an unusual genomic organization similar to that of B-cell and T-cell receptor gene clusters. The alpha gene cluster is composed of 15 cadherin superfamily genes related to the mouse CNR genes and consists of 13 highly similar and 2 more distantly related coding sequences. The tandem array of 15 N-terminal exons, or variable exons, are followed by downstream C-terminal exons, or constant exons, which are shared by all genes in the cluster. The large, uninterrupted N-terminal exons each encode six cadherin ectodomains while the C-terminal exons encode the cytoplasmic domain.
These neural cadherin-like cell adhesion proteins are integral plasma membrane proteins that most likely play a critical role in the establishment and function of specific cell-cell connections in the brain. Alternative splicing has been observed and additional variants have been suggested but their full-length nature has yet to be determined.[6]
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Sugino H, Hamada S, Yasuda R, et al. (2000). "Genomic organization of the family of CNR cadherin genes in mice and humans". Genomics. 63 (1): 75–87. doi:10.1006/geno.1999.6066. PMID10662547.
Gevaert K, Goethals M, Martens L, et al. (2004). "Exploring proteomes and analyzing protein processing by mass spectrometric identification of sorted N-terminal peptides". Nat. Biotechnol. 21 (5): 566–9. doi:10.1038/nbt810. PMID12665801. S2CID23783563.
