Palladin

Wikipedia

Palladin is a component of actin-containing microfilaments that control cell shape, adhesion, and contraction.

Palladin's precise biological role is poorly understood, but it has been shown to play a role in cytoskeletal organization, embryonic development, cell motility, scar formation in the skin, and nerve cell development.

Disease Linkage

Recently, it has been demonstrated that palladin RNA is overexpressed in patients with pancreatic neoplasia, and that palladin is both overexpressed and mutated in an inherited form of pancreatic cancer. The palladin mutation identified in familial pancreatic cancer may be unique to a single North American family, as this same mutation has not been found in any other European or North American populations, respectively, in two other genetic studies.^

Further, Salaria et al. have shown that palladin is overexpressed in the non-neoplastic stroma of pancreatic cancer, but only rarely in the cancer cells per se, suggesting that palladin's role in this disease may involve changes in the tumor microenvironmment. More research is clearly required before this protein and its role in neoplasia can be fully understood.

Disease-causing mutations have also been identified in the two other members of this gene family. Myotilin mutations cause a form of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, and mutations in myopalladin cause an inherited form of heart disease (dilated cardiomyopathy).