The Role of Immunoglobulin Superfamily Cell Adhesion Molecules in Cancer Metastasis

Table 1

The role of IgSF members in the metastatic cascade.

Stages in metastasis	Involvement of IgSF members
	Known role	Potential role
(1) Cell proliferation in primary tumour
(i) Apoptotic	NCAM [24]	MCAM [27, 28]
evasion	ALCAM [29]
(ii) Angiogenesis	PECAM-1 [30, 31]	VCAM [32]
	ICAM-1 [33, 34]
(2) Local cell invasion
	MCAM [8, 35, 36]
(i) Cell-cell	ALCAM [37]
interactions	L1CAM [14, 38]
		ICAM-1 [40]
(ii) Directional cell		VCAM-1 [40]
migration and cell	MCAM [39]	PECAM-1 [41]
polarity		NCAM [27]
		MCAM [25, 42, 43]
		L1-CAM [44]
(iii) Matrix	MCAM [35, 36, 45]	ALCAM [46]
degradation	NCAM [47]
(3) Intravasation and dissemination		MCAM [48]
		ALCAM [49]
(4) Extravasation		MCAM [8, 35, 36]
		ALCAM [14, 37]
		NCAM [50]
		L1CAM [38, 51, 52]
		PECAM-1 [53, 54]
(5) Colonization and proliferation	As for (1) and (2)	As for (1) and (2)
(6) Immunological escape		MCAM [8, 36]
		ALCAM [14, 37]
		NCAM [50]