Background：

This gene encodes a member of the EGF-TM7 subfamily of adhesion G protein-coupled receptors， which mediate cell-cell interactions. These proteins are cleaved by self-catalytic proteolysis into a large extracellular subunit and seven-span transmembrane subunit， which associate at the cell surface as a receptor complex. The encoded protein may play a role in cell adhesion as well as leukocyte recruitment， activation and migration， and contains multiple extracellular EGF-like repeats which mediate binding to chondroitin sulfate and the cell surface complement regulatory protein CD55. Expression of this gene may play a role in the progression of several types of cancer. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding multiple isoforms with 3 to 5 EGF-like repeats have been observed for this gene. This gene is found in a cluster with other EGF-TM7 genes on the short arm of chromosome 19.