Tenascin

The tenascin family of cell adhesion matrix glycoproteins is involved in diverse substrate-adhesion interactions in developmental, adult and tumor tissues. The best known isoforms are tenascin -C, -X, -R, -Y and -W, with tenascin-C being fairly well characterized. The basic structure includes a linear portion of 14 EGF-like repeats towards the N-terminal end followed by eight or more FnIII domains, depending upon species and splice variant. The diagram below shows a complete monomer and the six-branched “hexabrachion” tenascin N-terminal disulfide-linked dimer of trimers.

tenascin cell adhesion matrix glycoprotein.