Syndecans

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Transmembrane proteins carrying heparan sulfate chains that help cells bind growth factors and other molecules at their outer surface
2. Membrane-anchored proteoglycan molecules on cell surfaces that act as co-receptors and regulate signalling between cells and their surroundings
3. A family of cell-surface heparan sulfate proteoglycans involved in cell adhesion, migration and the binding of extracellular matrix components

Etymology: "Syndecans" is the plural of "syndecan", a term for a family of cell-surface protein molecules. The name is a modern scientific coinage, built from Greek roots rather than a word that circulated in antiquity: the prefix "syn-" (together, with) and the Greek "dekan" (receiving, from "dechesthai", to receive), combined with the chemical suffix "-an" that biochemists attach to glycan-containing molecules. The sense is roughly "that which receives together," a reference to how these proteins gather and bind signals and other molecules at the surface of a cell. Because the word is a technical coinage, its history is short and specialist. The "-syn" and "-dec" elements were chosen to describe the molecules' function, and the plural form simply follows ordinary English usage for a set of related molecules. A reader encountering the term today will mostly meet it in biochemistry and cell biology texts.