Meteorin is a 31kD, secreted protein that is expressed by undifferentiated neural and glial progenitors, and astrocytes. Its name derives from it ability to generate glial cells with long meteor-like tails. Mouse Meteorin is synthesized as a 291aa precursor that contains a 270aa mature region. It contains eight cysteines with no identifiable domains or N-linked glycosylation sites. There is one alternate splice form where the first 164aa of the precursor are deleted and aa165 is changed to a Met, possibly to serve in translation initiation. Mature mouse Meteorin is 82-77aa identical to human and bovine Meteorin, respectively.