The adhesive binding site of cadherins revisited

Cadherins are single-pass transmembrane proteins that, through their hemoph ilic specificity, function in selective cell adhesion and sorting. They hav e a modular structure that includes an ectodomain composed of tandem 'cadhe rin domains,' which have a beta-sandwich topology similar to that of immuno globulin domains. Some early experiments suggest that, for the 'classical' cadherins, the adhesive specificity is encoded in the membrane-distal amino -terminal cadherin domain. Here, we review these data, and present new data that supports this idea. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.