Cell, tissue, and organ structure is maintained by cell-cell adhesion molecules that connect opposing cells. Cadherins are a class of essential cell-cell adhesion molecules for tissue formation and integrity, and defects in cadherin function cause various diseases (e.g., cancer invasion). Cadherin protrudes from the cell surface and binds another cadherin on an opposing cell to mediate cell-cell adhesion. The cadherin binding process mainly comprises two dimerization steps: X-dimer formation and strand-swap (SS-) dimer formation of the extracellular domains (ectodomains) of cadherin. However, interactions other than those involving the formation of the X- and SS-dimers have also been proposed, and the precise binding mechanism of cadherin remains controversial.
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Source: Phys.org