Background of the antigen
Protocadherins are a large family of cadherin-like cell adhesion proteins that are involved in the establishment and maintenance of neuronal connections in the brain. There are three protocadherin gene clusters, designated a, b and g, all of which contain multiple tandemly-arranged genes. PCDHB10 (protocadherin b10), also known as PCHB10 or PCDH-b10, is an 800 amino acid protein that is one of 16 proteins in the protocadherin b cluster. Unlike the a and g gene clusters, whose genes are spliced to downstream constant-region exons during transcription, members of the b cluster (such as PCDHB10) do not use constant-region exons to produce mRNAs. As a result, each protocadherin b gene encodes the transmembrane, extracellular and short cytoplasmic domains of the protein. Localized to the cell membrane, PCDHB10 is a single-pass type I membrane protein that contains six cadherin domains.
