The Journal of Cell Biology

receptors (receptor for advanced glycation end products [RAGE] and sulphated glycan epitopes) and to activation of proteolysis of ECM through binding of plasminogen and it’s activators to amphoterin (for review see Rauvala et al., 2000; Muller et al., 2001). To examine the role of amphoterin in cell motility, especially in neurite outgrowth, we searched for genes that are induced on amphoterin matrix by using mRNA differential display. A transcript that was prominently up-regulated on amphoterin-coated matrix was found to encode a novel protein. In this paper, we describe the cloning and functional characterization of this novel protein, named amphoterininduced gene and ORF (AMIGO). Cloning of AMIGO gave us sequence data to clone two other related proteins (AMIGO2 and AMIGO3); together, these three proteins