Behold, the Laminin of God

Laminin is a cell adhesion protein. The Wikipedia entry says a lot about it that I don't really understand, but one intelligible-even-to-non-geeks statement is that "Laminin is vital to making sure that your overall body structures hold together. If laminin isn't produced correctly, your muscles may form improperly, giving you a form of muscular dystrophy. Or you may just fall apart in a way similar to aging, a condition called 'progeria.'" Clearly, laminins "are an integral part of the structural scaffolding in almost every animal tissue."

I heard about laminin just this morning during lunch at the Bula Bistro.

Here a diagram of the molecular structure of laminin:
Look familiar?

Laminin, gamma 2, also known as LAMC2, is a human gene.[1]Laminins, a family of extracellular matrix glycoproteins, are the major noncollagenous constituent of basement membranes. They have been implicated in a wide variety of biological processes including cell adhesion, differentiation, migration, signaling, neurite outgrowth and metastasis. Laminins are composed of 3 non identical chains: laminin alpha, beta and gamma (formerly A, B1, and B2, respectively) and they form a cruciform structure consisting of 3 short arms, each formed by a different chain, and a long arm composed of all 3 chains. Each laminin chain is a multidomain protein encoded by a distinct gene. Several isoforms of each chain have been described. Different alpha, beta and gamma chain isomers combine to give rise to different heterotrimeric laminin isoforms which are designated by Arabic numerals in the order of their discovery, i.e. alpha1beta1gamma1 heterotrimer is laminin 1. The biological functions of the different chains and trimer molecules are largely unknown, but some of the chains have been shown to differ with respect to their tissue distribution, presumably reflecting diverse functions in vivo. This gene encodes the gamma chain isoform laminin, gamma 2. The gamma 2 chain, formerly thought to be a truncated version of beta chain (B2t), is highly homologous to the gamma 1 chain; however, it lacks domain VI, and domains V, IV and III are shorter. It is expressed in several fetal tissues but differently from gamma 1, and is specifically localized to epithelial cells in skin, lung and kidney. The gamma 2 chain together with alpha 3 and beta 3 chains constitute laminin 5 (earlier known as kalinin), which is an integral part of the anchoring filaments that connect epithelial cells to the underlying basement membrane. The epithelium-specific expression of the gamma 2 chain implied its role as an epithelium attachment molecule, and mutations in this gene have been associated with junctional epidermolysis bullosa, a skin disease characterized[1]

Louis Giglio draws a connection between laminin's role in the body with how in Christ "all things hold together" (Col. 1:17). (video on YouTube). You can find references to this on a lot of blogs, but I thought it was fascinating and wanted to share it too . . . especially after Michael said, "Behold, the laminin of God!"

Also, laminin is "actually made up of three separate parts," or three different chains, per Wikipedia. I guess you could say it's a triune protein. I don't know enough about the molecular structure of proteins to know if that's unusual, but this protein seems to be another way that nature points to God . . . for those who have eyes to see.

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