Virtuelle (Nano) Welten PDB Molecule of the Month 99:Cadherin

Gluing Cells Together

Cadherin molecules assemble side-by-side into a large patch, called an adherens junction, that glues cells together. There is still some controversy about how cadherins are arranged in these junctions. When researchers look at them in the electron microscope, they often look different depending on how the samples were prepared. Some techniques show a highly ordered arrangement, with all the cadherins aligned symmetrically side-by-side, attached to a similar array on the neighboring cell. Other techniques show a big tangle of chains, all reaching across and connecting to whatever neighboring chain they can find. The structures shown here are representative of both views. On the left is a structure from X-ray crystallography; it shows a symmetrical structure (PDB entry 1l3w). The structures in the middle and on the right are models obtained by fitting an atomic structure to an electron micrograph (PDB entries 1q5a and 1q5c). These models show a much more random arrangement of the chains. -

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