CEA Polyclonal Antibody, Invitrogen™

Description

• CEA (Carcino Embryonic Antigen, CD66e) is synthesized during development in the fetal gut, and re-expressed in increased amounts in intestinal carcinomas and several other tumors
• CEA is a member of carcinoembryonic antigens, immunoglobulin supergene family and consists of a single N domain (structural homology to the immunoglobulin variable) and six immunoglobulin constant-like A (A1, A2, A3) and B domains (B1, B2, B3)
• Antibodies to CEA are useful in identifying the origin of various metastatic adenocarcinomas and in distinguishing pulmonary adenocarcinomas (60 to 70% are CEA+) from pleural mesotheliomas (rarely or weakly CEA+)
• CEA is a member of a large family of glycoproteins, a useful tumor marker for adenocarcinoma, and found in adenocarcinomas of endodermally derived digestive system epithelium and fetal colon
• Two subgroups of the CEA family, the CEA cell adhesion molecules and the pregnancy-specific glycoproteins, are located within a 1.2 Mb cluster on the long arm of chromosome 19
• Eleven pseudogenes of the CEA cell adhesion molecule subgroup are also found in the cluster
• CEA was originally described in bile ducts of liver as biliary glycoprotein
• Subsequently, CEA was found to be a cell-cell adhesion molecule detected on leukocytes, epithelia, and endothelia
• The encoded protein mediates cell adhesion via homophilic as well as heterophilic binding to other proteins of the subgroup
• Multiple cellular activities have been attributed to the encoded protein, including roles in the differentiation and arrangement of tissue three-dimensional structure, angiogenesis, apoptosis, tumor suppression, metastasis, and the modulation of innate and adaptive immune responses
• Multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been reported, but the full-length nature of all variants has not been defined.