Brevican (BCAN)

Neurocan is a developmentally regulated CSPG that shares functional domains with the cartilage CSPG aggrecan and the fibroblast CSPG versican . Yamada et al. (1994) described the molecular cloning of a novel bovine brain proteoglycan of the aggrecan/versican/neurocan family. Since it is the shortest core protein in this family, they named it brevican (from the Latin word 'brevis,' meaning 'short').

A significant amount of brevican devoid of any glycosaminoglycan chains is present in brain, indicating that brevican is a 'part-time' proteoglycan. Northern blot analysis demonstrated that a single 3.3-kb brevican transcript is present predominantly in the brain and that it is expressed in primary cerebellar astrocytes but not in neurons.