thumb|CD68 immunostaining demonstrating [[macrophages and giant cells in a case of xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis]] CD68 (Cluster of Differentiation 68) is a protein highly expressed by cells in the monocyte lineage (e.g., monocytic phagocytes, osteoclasts), by circulating macrophages, and by tissue macrophages (e.g., Kupffer cells, microglia).
thumb|CD68 immunostaining demonstrating [[macrophages and giant cells in a case of xanthogranulomatous pyelonephritis]] CD68 (Cluster of Differentiation 68) is a protein highly expressed by cells in the monocyte lineage (e.g., monocytic phagocytes, osteoclasts), by circulating macrophages, and by tissue macrophages (e.g., Kupffer cells, microglia).
==Structure and function== Human CD68 is a Type I transmembrane glycoprotein, heavily glycosylated in its extracellular domain, with a molecular weight of 110 kD. Its primary sequence consists of 354 amino acids with predicted molecular weight of 37.4 kD if it were not glycosylated. The human CD68 protein is encoded by the CD68 gene which maps to chromosome 17. Other names or aliases for this gene in humans and other animals include: CD68 Molecule, CD68 Antigen, GP110, Macrosialin, Scavenger Receptor Class D, Member 1, SCARD1, and LAMP4. The mouse equivalent is known as "macrosialin".
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).