More About Laminin

Previously, I had blogged my opinion on the protein Laminin and its supposedly “cross” shape. The shape of this protein was seized upon by one evangelist, Louie Giglio to support a proposition in his sermon. I did not know much about the protein at that time (except what I wrote in that blog) and I was reluctant to believe that a scientist would say that the protein was “cross” shaped partly due to the sensationalism of Louie, I must admit. However, I now have found some interesting information regarding this protein’s role in cancer research.

Recently, whilst I was reading the [excellent introductory pathology and core text in my course] book, Cell, Tissue and Disease by Prof. Neville Woolf (2000), I came across this little paragraph about laminin:

“Laminin is a cross-shaped glycoprotein present in both the basement membrane and the interstitial stroma. In normal cells laminin receptors occur on the aspect of the cell apposed to the basement membrane and are occupied by basement membrane laminin. Invasive cells, however, have laminin receptors diffusely distributed over the entire cell surface and these are often unoccupied. If such tumour cells are treated with the receptor binding fragment of laminin, their invasiveness is greately reduced” [my emphases]

Firstly, the author refers to this protein explicitly as “cross-shaped”, so Louie’s description was accurate. Secondly, it appears Laminin fragments reduce the metastatic potential of a neoplastic (tumorous) growth and hence, rids the neoplasm of its dangerous property. This potential therapy can be used if the cancerous growth had not metastasized already. Even if the cancer has spread, it could (in theory) arrest further spreading. It should be noted that this is less likely to happen naturally even when there is enough laminin in the body [to arrest the spreading of a cancer] because there is little laminin fragments freely floating around in the body. I suspect that the laminin fragments have therapeutic potential because they don’t have the binding domain for the basement membrane, otherwise (I think) they might actually help the invasive cell to adhere to the basement membrane and achieve malignancy easily!

So, the cross shaped Laminin not only proves God’s promises to be true, it helps scientists to cure cancer! 

Laminin: A view from a “scientist to be”….

I heard about this molecule called Laminin that apparently looks like a Cross. In this age of stuff appearing in tortillas and what have you, I decided to check it out. Thinking about it, I remembered one lecturer in introducing histology mentioning about this Laminin molecule in connection to molecules in the extracellular matrix. He did not elaborate on the structure of this molecule.

So I went to Google. The first item on the search takes me to a video of Louie Giglio wowing a crowd showing a “scientific diagram” of this Laminin. Needless to say that his presentation was pretty cool (though overwrought with much emotion), I wasn’t too impressed by all the skeptics/atheists flaming in the comments section of the video. It was almost like the haters had a skewed perception of what exactly is being claimed here. In fact there was a good clarification by the uploader of another one of the video