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Structural Aspects of Intermediate Filaments

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Book cover Cell and Molecular Biology of the Cytoskeleton

Abstract

Microtubules, microfilaments, and intermediate filaments (IF) form the three filamentous organizations of the cytoplasm. Whereas the major structural components of the two former systems—actin and tubulin—are highly conserved in different cell types, the constituent proteins of IF can vary greatly in amino acid sequence and length (40–200 K). This peculiar property led originally to much confusion as to the similarity and divergence of IF proteins. By the late 1970s it was obvious that IF proteins could be subdivided by biochemical and particularly by immunological data in a histologically meaningful manner as their expression pattern coincided with known rules of embryonic differentiation (for review see Lazarides, 1982; Osborn et al., 1982). Five subclasses were identified: epithelial keratins, neuronal neurofilaments, desmin filaments of most muscles, GFAP filaments of glia, and vimentin filaments present primarily in mesenchymal cells. Subsequent biochemical results documented around 20 different human keratins some of which were again markers of morphologically distinct epithelia (for review see Moll et al., 1982).

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  1. Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, D-3400, Goettingen, Federal Republic of Germany

    Norbert Geisler & Klaus Weber

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  1. Norbert Geisler
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  2. Klaus Weber
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  1. University of Texas Health Science Center, Dallas, Texas, USA

    Jerry W. Shay

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© 1986 Plenum Press, New York

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Geisler, N., Weber, K. (1986). Structural Aspects of Intermediate Filaments. In: Shay, J.W. (eds) Cell and Molecular Biology of the Cytoskeleton. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2151-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2151-4_2

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