Anti-CD44 / Pgp-1 Monoclonal Antibody (Clone:MEM-85)

CD44 is a transmembrane glycoprotein expressed on the surface of most cells, which serves as a receptor for hyaluronan. CD44 mediates angiogenesis, cell adhesion, proliferation and migration, it is thus important for lymphocyte activation, recirculation and homing, it can thus serve e.g. as a modulator of macrophage recruitment in response to pathogen. Although CD44 functions are essential for physiological activities of normal cells, elevated CD44 expression correlates with poor prognosis in many carcinomas, facilitating tumour growth and metastasis, antiapoptosis and directional motility of cancer cells. Protein function: Receptor for hyaluronic acid (HA). Mediates cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions through its affinity for HA, and possibly also through its affinity for other ligands such as osteopontin, collagens, and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). Adhesion with HA plays an important role in cell migration, tumor growth and progression. In cancer cells, may play an important role in invadopodia formation. Also involved in lymphocyte activation, recirculation and homing, and in hematopoiesis. Altered expression or dysfunction causes numerous pathogenic phenotypes. Great protein heterogeneity due to numerous alternative splicing and post-translational modification events. Receptor for LGALS9, the interaction enhances binding of SMAD3 to the FOXP3 promoter, leading to up-regulation of FOXP3 expression and increased induced regulatory T (iTreg) cell stability and suppressive function. [The UniProt Consortium]