Junctional adhesion molecule

A junctional adhesion molecule (JAM) is a protein that is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily, and is expressed in a variety of different tissues, such as leukocytes, platelets, and epithelial and endothelial cells. They have been shown to regulate signal complex assembly on both their cytoplasmic and extracellular domains through interaction with scaffolding that contains a PDZ domain and adjacent cell's receptors, respectively. JAMs adhere to adjacent cells through interactions with integrins LFA-1 and Mac-1, which are contained in leukocyte β2 and α4β1, which is contained in β1. JAMs have many influences on leukocyte-endothelial cell interactions, which are primarily moderated by the integrins discussed above. They interact in their cytoplasmic domain with scaffold proteins that contain a PDZ domain, which are common protein interaction modules that target short amino acid sequences at the C-terminus of proteins, to form tight junctions in both epithelial and endothelial cells as polarity is gained in the cell.