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Fibronectin

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Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules
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Synonyms

Cell spreading factor; Cell surface protein; Cold-insoluble globulin; Galactoprotein A; Humoral recognition factor; Large external transformation sensitive protein (LETS); Migration stimulating factor; Opsonic alpha-2 surface binding glycoprotein; Surface glycoprotein antigen

Historical Background

Fibronectin is a large glycoprotein found in plasma (plasma fibronectin) and the extracellular matrix (cellular fibronectin). The former type was initially named cold-insoluble globulin (Morrison et al. 1948). In the 1970s, several laboratories independently characterized cellular fibronectin, naming it surface glycoprotein antigen (Vaheri and Ruoslahti 1974), large external transformation sensitive protein (LETS) (Hynes and Bye 1974), and cell surface protein (Yamada and Weston 1974), among others. When the common identity of these proteins was recognized, the name fibronectin (from the Latin fibra, meaning “fiber” and nectere meaning “to bind”) was adopted.

Fibronectin is composed...

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Correspondence to Richard P. Tucker .

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Tucker, R.P. (2018). Fibronectin. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_101621

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