Adam17 - a disintegrin and metallopeptidase domain 17

This gene encodes a member of a disintegrin and metalloprotease (ADAM) family of endoproteases that play important roles in various biological processes including cell signaling, adhesion and migration. The encoded preproprotein undergoes proteolytic processing to generate a mature enzyme that is involved in the proteolytic release of membrane-bound proteins in a process called ectodomain shedding. Mice lacking the encoded protein die in utero or fail to survive beyond one week of age. Alternative splicing results in multiple transcript variants encoding different isoforms, some of which may undergo similar processing. [provided by RefSeq, May 2016]