NCAM1

Neural cell adhesion molecule 1 (NCAM1), also known as CD56, NCAM or MSK39, is a cell adhesion protein that belongs to the immunoglobulin superfamily. NCAM-1 is a multifunctional molecule and it has been implicated in cell adhesion, neurite outgrowth, synaptic plasticity, and learning and memory. It is also involved in the expansion of T cells and dendritic cells which play a crucial role in immune surveillance.

This protein appears on early embryonic cells and plays an important role in the formation of cell collectives and their boundaries at sites of morphogenesis. This protein is also expressed on the surface of various normal and differentiated tissues that include neurons, glia, skeletal muscle and natural killer cells. What's more, there are a large number of tumors that exhibit CD56-positivity, such as Myeloma, Myeloid Leukemia, Neuroendocrine tumors, neuroblastoma, NK/T cell lymphomas, pancreatic acinar cell carcinoma, pheochromocytoma, paraganglioma, small cell lung carcinoma… Therefore, NCAM1 has been widely used as a target molecule for different cancer immunotherapy strategies, including therapeutic monoclonal antibody, immunotoxin as well as antibody-drug conjugate(ADC).

Gene ID: 4684
UniProt ID: P13591