Description
NELL2 is a neuron-specific thrombospondin-1-like extracellular protein containing six epidermal growth factor-like domains. It is highly expressed in the hippocampus in vivo and promotes survival of rat primary cultured neurons through activation of JNK and suppression of ERK. As ERK is required for the induction of hippocampal long term potentiation (LTP) and JNK appears to be inhibitory on LTP, it had been suggested that NELL2 may play a role in synaptic plasticity