Description
Product Characteristics: CD40 is a member of the tumour necrosis factor (TNF) receptor super family, which includes the low affinity nerve growth factor (NGF) receptor and CD95/Fas. CD40 is the receptor for CD40 ligand. CD40 ligand (CD40L, CD154, gp39, and TRAM) belongs to the TNF gene family and is expressed more widely than CD40 predominantly on activated CD4+ T cells. Following interaction with CD40 ligand, CD40 mediates a number of major immunoregulatory functions, central to the control of thymus dependent humoral immunity and may be critical in the development of cell mediated immune responses. Other biological actions include B cell homotypic adhesion, proliferation, immunoglobulin isotype switch, and secretion. Activation of CD40 has also been shown to inhibit the growth of certain B cell lymphomas and to induce the death of transformed cells of mesenchymal or epithelial origin. Disease relevance of CD40: CD40 antigen is also present on Hodgkin's and Reed-Sternberg cells, follicular dendritic cells, some macrophages, basal epithelial cells and endothelial cells.
Target Information: The protein encoded by this gene is a member of the TNF-receptor superfamily. This receptor has been found to be essential in mediating a broad variety of immune and inflammatory responses including T cell-dependent immunoglobulin class switching, memory B cell development, and germinal center formation. AT-hook transcription factor AKNA is reported to coordinately regulate the expression of this receptor and its ligand, which may be important for homotypic cell interactions. Adaptor protein TNFR2 interacts with this receptor and serves as a mediator of the signal transduction. The interaction of this receptor and its ligand is found to be necessary for amyloid-beta-induced microglial activation, and thus is thought to be an early event in Alzheimer disease pathogenesis. Two alternatively spliced transcript variants of this gene encoding distinct isoforms have been reported. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008]