ESM1

Endothelial cell-specific molecule 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ESM1 gene.^[5][6]

ESM1
Identifiers
Aliases	ESM1, endocan, endothelial cell specific molecule 1
External IDs	OMIM: 601521; MGI: 1918940; HomoloGene: 5107; GeneCards: ESM1; OMA:ESM1 - orthologs
Gene location (Human) Chr. Chromosome 5 (human)[1] Band 5q11.2 Start 54,977,867 bp[1] End 55,022,671 bp[1]
Gene location (Mouse) Chr. Chromosome 13 (mouse)[2] Band 13|13 D2.2 Start 113,346,193 bp[2] End 113,354,632 bp[2]
RNA expression pattern Bgee Human Mouse (ortholog) Top expressed in islet of Langerhans right lung trabecular bone upper lobe of left lung kidney lower lobe of lung renal cortex visceral pleura tibia metanephric glomerulus Top expressed in pineal gland islet of Langerhans kidney adrenal gland pituitary gland proximal tubule extraocular muscle renal corpuscle body of femur spleen More reference expression data BioGPS More reference expression data
Gene ontology Molecular function integrin binding insulin-like growth factor binding hepatocyte growth factor receptor binding Cellular component extracellular region Biological process sprouting angiogenesis regulation of cell growth angiogenesis positive regulation of cell population proliferation positive regulation of hepatocyte growth factor receptor signaling pathway Sources:Amigo / QuickGO
Orthologs Species Human Mouse Entrez 11082 71690 Ensembl ENSG00000164283 ENSMUSG00000042379 UniProt Q9NQ30 Q9QYY7 RefSeq (mRNA) NM_007036 NM_001135604 NM_023612 RefSeq (protein) NP_001129076 NP_008967 NP_076101 Location (UCSC) Chr 5: 54.98 – 55.02 Mb Chr 13: 113.35 – 113.35 Mb PubMed search [3] [4]
Wikidata
View/Edit Human View/Edit Mouse

This gene encodes a secreted protein which is mainly expressed in the endothelial cells in human lung and kidney tissues. The expression of this gene is regulated by cytokines, suggesting that it may play a role in endothelium-dependent pathological disorders. The transcript contains multiple polyadenylation and mRNA instability signals.^[6]

The ESM-1 gene product is also called endocan since 2001, when it was characterized as a dermatan sulfate proteoglycan by Bechard et al. Recently, endocan / ESM-1 has been described as a specific biomarker of tip cells during neoangiogenesis by independent teams. Endocan expression has been shown to be increase in presence of pro-angiogenic growth factors such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF-2). In hypervascularized cancers, overexpression of endocan has been detected by immunohistochemistry using monoclonal antibodies against endocan / ESM-1.