L1CAM (green) interactions with ankyrin (red) prevent migration.
The immunoglobulin family member L1CAM promotes both growth cone extension in the developing central nervous system and cell adhesion-mediated maintenance of axon bundles in mature neurons. How the same adhesion molecule regulates these disparate functions is not clear, particularly since the L1 family does not undergo the class switching (from adhesion-promoter to migration-promoter) that seems to be common in integrins.
Rather than changing receptor types, L1CAM switches its own kinetic behavior to modulate cell movements. Stationary L1CAM, which may be associated with adhesion, was found to depend on ankyrin to stay in place. Release of the ankyrin linkage, either with a peptide derived from the...
