The semaphorin/collapsin family of molecules plays a critical role in the guidance of growth cones during neuronal development. The secreted protein encoded by this gene family member is important in axonal guidance and has been shown to act as a tumor suppressor by inducing apoptosis.[7]
Wei MH, Latif F, Bader S, Kashuba V, Chen JY, Duh FM, Sekido Y, Lee CC, Geil L, Kuzmin I, Zabarovsky E, Klein G, Zbar B, Minna JD, Lerman MI (April 1996). "Construction of a 600-kilobase cosmid clone contig and generation of a transcriptional map surrounding the lung cancer tumor suppressor gene (TSG) locus on human chromosome 3p21.3: progress toward the isolation of a lung cancer TSG". Cancer Research. 56 (7): 1487–92. PMID8603390.
Takahashi T, Nakamura F, Jin Z, Kalb RG, Strittmatter SM (October 1998). "Semaphorins A and E act as antagonists of neuropilin-1 and agonists of neuropilin-2 receptors". Nature Neuroscience. 1 (6): 487–93. doi:10.1038/2203. PMID10196546. S2CID38320889.
Lerman MI, Minna JD (November 2000). "The 630-kb lung cancer homozygous deletion region on human chromosome 3p21.3: identification and evaluation of the resident candidate tumor suppressor genes. The International Lung Cancer Chromosome 3p21.3 Tumor Suppressor Gene Consortium". Cancer Research. 60 (21): 6116–33. PMID11085536.
Kuroki T, Trapasso F, Yendamuri S, Matsuyama A, Alder H, Williams NN, Kaiser LR, Croce CM (June 2003). "Allelic loss on chromosome 3p21.3 and promoter hypermethylation of semaphorin 3B in non-small cell lung cancer". Cancer Research. 63 (12): 3352–5. PMID12810670.