Glycoprotein M6A (GPM6A)

M6, a cell surface glycoprotein mainly expressed on neurons in the murine CNS, plays significant roles in neural cell adhesion and some aspects of neurite growth (Lagenaur et al., 1992). Shimizu et al. (1996) isolated a human cDNA that is highly homologous to the murine gene, symbolized Gpm6, that encodes M6. The human gene, GPM6A, contains an open reading frame of 834 nucleotides encoding a peptide of 278 amino acids. Northern blot analysis revealed specific expression in human brain. The cDNAs, which they designated M6a and M6b , were highly similar to the myelin proteolipid protein and were expressed during early development of the mouse central nervous system (CNS).Olinsky et al. (1996) found that the M6a gene (GPM6A) was expressed only in neurons.