Versican (VCAN)

Versican is a large chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan with an apparent molecular mass of more than 1000kDa. In 1989, Zimmermann and Ruoslahti cloned and sequenced the core protein of fibroblast chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan. They designated it versican in recognition of its versatile modular structure. Versican belongs to the lectican protein family, with Aggrecan (abundant in Cartilage), Brevican and Neurocan (nervous system proteoglycans) as other members.

Versican is also known as Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan core protein 2 (CSPG-2), PG-M, and Chondroitin sulfate proteoglycan 2.These proteoglycans share a homologous globular N-terminal, C-terminal, and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) binding regions.