Brevican (BCAN)

Neurocan is a developmentally regulated CSPG that shares functional domains with the cartilage CSPG aggrecan and the fibroblast CSPG versican . Yamada et al. (1994) described the molecular cloning of a novel bovine brain proteoglycan of the aggrecan/versican/neurocan family. Since it is the shortest core protein in this family, they named it brevican (from the Latin word """brevis,""" meaning """short""").A significant amount of brevican devoid of any glycosaminoglycan chains is present in brain, indicating that brevican is a """part-time""" proteoglycan. Northern blot analysis demonstrated that a single 3.3-kb brevican transcript is present predominantly in the brain and that it is expressed in primary cerebellar astrocytes but not in neurons.