Catenin alpha 2: Proteins and Enzymes

It has been shown that alpha N-catenin, a linker between cadherin adhesion receptors and the actin cytoskeleton, is essential for stabilizing dendritic spines in rodent hippocampal neurons in culture. Results suggest that alpha N-catenin is a key regulator for the stability of synaptic contacts (1). We show here that antibodies against alpha catenin also immunoprecipitate complexes that contain human N-cadherin, mouse P-cadherin, chicken A-CAM (adherens junction-specific CAM; also called N-cadherin) or Xenopus U-cadherin, demonstrating that alpha catenin is complexed with other cadherins(2).