The cadherins are a family of Ca2+-dependent adhesion molecules that function to mediate cell-cell binding critical to the maintenance of structure and morphogenesis. Cadherins each contain a large extracellular domain at the N-terminus, which is characterized by a series of five homologous repeats, the most distal of which is thought to be responsible for binding specificity. Cadherin-29, also known as Cadherin-related family member 4, is a 788 amino acid single-pass type I membrane protein that has four cadherin domains. There are two isoforms of cadherin-29 that are produced as a result of alternative splicing events. The gene encoding cadherin-29 maps to human chromosome 3, which is is made up of about 214 million bases encoding over 1,100 genes. Notably, there is a chemokine receptor gene cluster and a variety of human cancer related loci on chromosome 3. Particular regions of the chromosome 3 short arm are deleted in many types of cancer cells.