Investigation of the physiological function of CMG2
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Abstract
Capillary Morphogenesis Protein 2 (CMG2) is known in part for its function as a receptor to the anthrax toxin. However, little is known about its physiological function within the body. Previous studies have shown that another anthrax receptor, Tumor Endothelial Marker 8 (TEM8), is capable of binding to collagen I and collagen VI through its MIDAS domain which indicates CMG2 may also have a similar binding quality. To test for collagen binding, CMG2 and a mutant D50A-CMG2 were purified and combined with different forms of collagen in a density gradient sedimentation. Following centrifugation, the gradients were separated into fractions which then underwent SDS-PAGE. CMG2 has demonstrated that it is able to bind to collagen type I, however it may not be dependent upon the MIDAS site for binding as the mutant strain of also demonstrated collagen type I binding. Further experimentation is to be performed to determine CMG2 binding to other types of collagens.