CDH19: During the early migration of sacral neural crest cells toward the hindgut, Cdh19 acts as a direct target of Sox10 and forms cadherin-catenin complexes that interact with the cytoskeleton of migrating cells.

• Gene Information:  CDH19 protein is a calcium dependent cell-cell adhesion glycoprotein containing five extracellular cadherin repeats. Loss of cadherins may be associated with cancer formation.
• Protein expression: CDH19 is expressed in neural crest cells and localized in dorsal root ganglia, sympathetic trunks, pelvic ganglia, trigeminal ganglia, facial ganglia and other sites. Meanwhile, CDH19 is widely expressed in malignant melanoma, while its expression is limited in normal tissues.
• Therapeutic Inhibition: Development of bispecific antibodies targeting CDH19 and CD3 for the treatment of melanoma.

CDH19

• The exons 2~11 of mouse Cdh19 gene that encode extracellular domain and is replaced by human counterparts in B-hCDH19 mice.
• The genomic region of mouse Cdh19 gene that encodes transmembrane domain and cytoplasmic portion is retained.
• The promoter, 5’UTR and 3’UTR region of the mouse gene are retained. The chimeric CDH19 expression is driven by endogenous mouse Cdh19 promoter.

Strain specific analysis of Cdh19 mRNA expression in C57BL/6JNifdc mice and homozygous B-hCDH19 mice by RT-PCR. Brain RNA were isolated from C57BL/6JNifdc mice (+/+) and homozygous B-hCDH19 mice (H/H), then cDNA libraries were synthesized by reverse transcription, followed by PCR with mouse Cdh19 primers. Mouse Cdh19 mRNA was detectable only in C57BL/6JNifdc mice but not in homozygous B-hCDH19 mice. Humanized CDH19 RNA was detectable only in homozygous B-hCDH19 mice but not in C57BL/6JNifdc mice.

Western blot analysis of CDH19 protein expression in homozygous B-hCDH19 mice. Various tissue lysates were collected from wild-type C57BL/6JNifdc (+/+) mice and homozygous B-hCDH19 mice (H/H), and then analyzed by western blot with anti-CDH19 antibody (Thermo Fisher, PA5-101291). 40 μg total proteins were loaded for western blotting analysis. CDH19 was detected in brain from homozygous B-hCDH19 mice and wild-type C57BL/6JNifdc mice, as the antibody was cross-reactive between human and mouse.