Description
Product Characteristics: TWEAK Antibody: TNF-related weak inducer of apoptosis (TWEAK) is a member of the tumor necrosis factor superfamily (TNFSF) of structurally related cytokines. Like most other members of this family, TWEAK is a cell surface-associated type II transmembrane protein although a smaller, biologically active form can also be generated by cleavage near the cell membrane. TWEAK has multiple biological activities, including stimulation of cell growth and angiogenesis, induction of inflammatory cytokines, in addition to stimulation of apoptosis. The TWEAK signal transduction pathway has not been well established but it appears to signal via TweakR/Fn14 in a manner similar to that described for other TNFSF members that bind receptors lacking death domains.
Target Information: The protein encoded by this gene is a cytokine that belongs to the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) ligand family. This protein is a ligand for the FN14/TWEAKR receptor. This cytokine has overlapping signaling functions with TNF, but displays a much wider tissue distribution. This cytokine, which exists in both membrane-bound and secreted forms, can induce apoptosis via multiple pathways of cell death in a cell type-specific manner. This cytokine is also found to promote proliferation and migration of endothelial cells, and thus acts as a regulator of angiogenesis. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants. Some transcripts skip the last exon of this gene and continue into the second exon of the neighboring TNFSF13 gene\, such read-through transcripts are contained in GeneID 407977, TNFSF12-TNFSF13. [provided by RefSeq, Oct 2010]