Physiology 3140A Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Skeletal Muscle, Desmin, Cadherin
10 Dec 2013
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Document Summary
There are 2 protein cores that are the major of the proteoglycan world (large diversity of proteoglycans but 2 are major). When we talk about a specific proteoglycan, we name it based on the core. If the core protein is aggrecan, that proteoglycan is called aggrecan. Aggrecan can be modified in a number of ways. It"s the protein core that really defines the proteoglycan itself. Perlican is highly expressed in the basal lamina and aggrecan is highly expressed in cartilage. They are like the glue of the ecm. They bind to each other, bind to collagen, proteoglycans, integrins and etc. They work well as those sticky finger grabbing other components of the matrix and cells together. Interestingly, we have only 1 gene of fibronectin. The special thing about that gene is that the body will choose to splice the mrna made in a variety of fashions. So one gene makes one pre-mrna and that pre-mrna will be spliced alternatively.
