A330108N19Rik Protein, R75516 Protein, mel91 Protein, nel Protein, NRP2 Protein, nell2 Protein, wu:fj43h11 Protein, zgc:158375 Protein, neural EGFL like 2 L homeolog Protein, NEL-like 2 Protein, neural EGFL like 2 Protein, neural EGFL like 2a Protein, nell2.L Protein, Nell2 Protein, NELL2 Protein, nell2a Protein
Sujet
NELL2 is a neuron-specific thrombospondin-1-like extracellular protein containing six epidermal growth factor-like domains (1). It is highly expressed in the hippocampus in vivo (2) and promotes survival of rat primary cultured neurons through activation of JNK and suppression of ERK (3). As ERK is required for the induction of hippocampal long term potentiation (LTP) and JNK appears to be inhibitory on LTP (4,5), it had been suggested that NELL2 may play a role in synaptic plasticity. More recently, NELL2 has been shown to promote differentiation of motor and sensory neurons and stimulates mitogenesis of dorsal root ganglia in chickens (6).