by Juliane
This is a lamp, lamps come in lots of different sizes and shapes. Some of them are even shaped like this:
The lysosome-associated membrane glycoprotein, Lamp to its friends, is part of the lysosome and therefore involved in digestion of foreign materials and autophagy. LAMP1 and 2 were first discovered in 1985, since then they have been widely studied and shown to be involved in quite a few important pathways in human cells.
Immune response: LAMP1 is necessary for delivery of perforin to lytic granules.
Cancer: LAMP 1 is a marker for melanoma metastasis into lymph nodes.
Apoptosis: LAMP1 and 2 promote apoptosis.
General Research: LAMP is a commonly used as a marker for lysosomes.
The scientists, who named this versatile protein, were either very boring (it describes exactly what it is) or very creative (there is beauty in simplicity).
References:
www.ikea.com
http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/cdmarkerscd107.html
Chen JW et a. (1985) Identification of two lysosomal membrane glycoproteins. J Cell Biol. 1(1):85-95.
Krzewski K et al (2013) LAMP1/CD107a is required for efficient perforin delivery to lytic granules and NK-cell cytotoxicity. Blood. 121(23):4672-83.
Sato H. et al (2009) Altered expression of glycoproteins on the cell surface of Jurkat cells during etoposide-induced apoptosis: shedding and intracellular translocation of glycoproteins. Biochim Biophys Acta. 1790(10):1198-205.