Laminins are a large family of conserved, multidomain trimeric basement membrane proteins. There are many theoretical trimer combinations but only 18 have been described (Domogatskaya et al. 2012, Miner 2008, Macdonald et al. 2010) and the existence of isoforms laminin-212 and/or laminin-222 (Durbeej et al. 2010) awaits further confirmation. The chains assemble through coiled-coil domains at their C-terminal end. Alpha chains additionally have a large C-terminal globular domain containing five LG subdomains (LG1-5). The N termini are often referred to as the short arms. These have varying numbers of laminin-type epidermal growth factor-like (LE) repeats. Trimer assembly is controlled by highly specific coiled-coil interactions (Domogatskaya et al. 2012). Some laminin isoforms are modified extracellularly by proteolytic processing at the N- or C-terminal ends prior to their binding to cellular receptors or other matrix molecules (Tzu & Marinkovitch 2008).

The cell adhesion properties of laminins are mediated primarily through the alpha chain G domain to integrins, dystroglycan, Lutheran glycoprotein, or sulfated glycolipids. The N-terminal globular domains of the alpha-1 (Colognato-Pyke et al. 1995) and alpha-2 chains (Colognato et al. 1997) and globular domains VI (Nielsen & Yamada 2001) and IVa (Sasaki & Timpl 2001) of the alpha-5 chain can bind to several integrin isoforms (alpha1beta1, alpha2beta1, alpha3beta1, and alphaVbeta3), which enables cell binding at both ends of laminins with these alpha chains.