Heterophilic recognition between E-cadherin and N-cadherin relies on same canonical binding interface as required for E-cadherin homodimerization

Cell adhesion marker expression dynamics during fusion of the optic fissure

“…In this context, RPE and NR are defined by their expression of E-cad and N-cad, respectively, whereas pioneer cells are defined by their heterogeneous N-cad, E-cad and R-cad cadherin expression. In addition to forming a buffer between NR and RPE, this heterotypic cadherin expression may be sufficient to determine pioneer cell identity, as direct crosstalk among classical cadherins has recently been shown to form heterotypic connections (Dash et al, 2022;Rogers et al, 2018).…”

“…1) suggest that additional type I cadherins are likely to be expressed in pioneer cells, such as CDH6 and CDH4/R-cad, and this may further increase the diversity of heterotypic cadherin presentation at cell-surfaces and affect cell-cell adhesion dynamics. Whether these different type I cadherins directly and functionally interact within the pioneer cell population remains unknown, but there is existing evidence that this may be the case (Dash et al, 2022;Rogers et al, 2018), including a recent study that found both co-expression and molecular interactions between heterotypic E-cad and N-cad in the developing chicken neural tube (Rogers et al, 2018). There may also be other, atypical (e.g.…”

“…How cadherin expression is regulated in this small and transient cell population is currently unknown. The transcriptional repressor SNAI2 is a mediator of EMT (reviewed in (Craene and Berx, 2013)) and can both directly and indirectly regulate the expression of cadherins, including E-cadherin via interaction with the E-cadherin promoter (Boló et al, 2003;Cô et al, 2004). SNAI2 was therefore a strong candidate for this function in pioneer cells at the OFM and so we assessed SNAI2 expression at both the mRNA and protein levels.…”