Kl. Cepek et al., EXPRESSION OF A CANDIDATE CADHERIN IN T-LYMPHOCYTES, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Statesof America, 93(13), 1996, pp. 6567-6571
Cadherins are homotypic adhesion molecules that classically mediate in
teractions between cells of the same type in solid tissues, In additio
n, E-cadherin is able to support homotypic adhesion of epidermal Lange
rhans cells to keratinocytes (Tang, A., Amagai, M., Granger, L. G., St
anley, J. R. & Udey. M. C. (1993) Nature (London) 361, 82-85) and hete
rotypic adhesion of mucosal epithelial cells to E-cadherin negative in
testinal intraepithelial T lymphocytes. Thus, we hypothesized that cad
herins may play a wider role in cell-to-cell adhesion events involving
T lymphocytes. We searched for a cadherin or cadherins in T lymphocyt
es with a pan-cadherin antiserum and antisera against alpha- or beta-c
atenin, molecules known to associate with the cytoplasmic domain of ca
dherins, The anti-beta-catenin antisera coimmunoprecipitated a radiola
beled species in T-lymphocyte lines that had a molecular mass of 129 k
Da and was specifically immunoblotted with the pan-cadherin antiserum,
Also, the pan cadherin antiserum directly immunoprecipitated a 129 kD
a radiolabeled species from an I-125 surface-labeled Jurkat human T-ce
ll leukemic cell line. After V8 protease digestion, the peptide map of
this pan-cadherin immunoprecipitated, 129-kDa species exactly matched
that of the 129-kDa species coimmunoprecipitated with the beta-cateni
n antiserum, These results demonstrate that T lymphocytes express a ca
tenin-associated protein that appears to be a member of the cadherin s
uperfamily and may contribute to T cell-mediated immune surveillance.