Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule (Dscam) is a cell adhesion molecule that plays a role in neuronal self-avoidance. It promotes repulsion between specific neuronal processes of either the same cell or the same subtype of cells. Dscam mediates, within retinal amacrine and ganglion cell subtypes, both isoneuronal self-avoidance for creating an orderly dendritic arborization and heteroneuronal self-avoidance to maintain the mosaic spacing between amacrine and ganglion cell bodies. It is the receptor for netrin that is required for axon guidance independently of and in collaboration with the receptor DCC. In spinal cord development, it plays a role in guiding commissural axons during projection and pathfinding across the ventral midline to reach the floor plate upon ligand binding. Dscam enhances netrin-induced phosphorylation of PAK1 and FYN. It mediates intracellular signaling by stimulating the activation of MAPK8 and MAP kinase p38. Dscam interacts with DCC, Netrin-1, PAK1 and RAC1.