This gene is an ortholog of the Drosophila fat gene, which encodes a tumor suppressor essential for controlling cell proliferation during Drosophila development. The gene product is a member of the cadherin superfamily, a group of integral membrane proteins characterized by the presence of cadherin-type repeats. In addition to containing 34 tandem cadherin-type repeats, the gene product has five epidermal growth factor (EGF)-like repeats and one laminin A-G domain. This gene is expressed at high levels in a number of fetal epithelia. Its product probably functions as an adhesion molecule and\\/or signaling receptor, and is likely to be important in developmental processes and cell communication. Transcript variants derived from alternative splicing and\\/or alternative promoter usage exist, but they have not been fully described. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008].
Wojtalewicz, Sadeqzadeh, Weiß, Tehrani, Klein-Scory, Hahn, Schmiegel, Warnken, Schnölzer, de Bock, Thorne, Schwarte-Waldhoff: "A soluble form of the giant cadherin Fat1 is released from pancreatic cancer cells by ADAM10 mediated ectodomain shedding." in: PLoS ONE, Vol. 9, Issue 3, pp. e90461, (2014) (PubMed).