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The central building block of an intermediate filament is a pair of two intertwined proteins that is called a coiled-coil structure. This name reflects the fact that the structure of each protein is helical, and the intertwined pair is also a helical structure.
An example of an intermediate filament is a Neurofilament. They provide support for the structure of the axon and are a major part of the cytoskeleton. Intermediate filaments contain an average diameter of 10 nm, which is smaller than that of microtubules, but larger than that of microfilaments. [4]
The structure of lamins is composed of three units that are common among intermediate filaments: a central α-helical rod domain containing heptad repeats surrounded by globular N and C-terminal domains. The N-terminal is shorter and located at the top (head) while the C-terminal is longer and located at the end (tail).
Vimentin is a type III intermediate filament (IF) protein that is expressed in mesenchymal cells. IF proteins are found in all animal cells [6] as well as bacteria. [7] Intermediate filaments, along with tubulin-based microtubules and actin-based microfilaments, comprises the cytoskeleton.
Eukaryotic cells contain three main kinds of cytoskeletal filaments: microfilaments, microtubules, and intermediate filaments. In neurons the intermediate filaments are known as neurofilaments. [16] Each type is formed by the polymerization of a distinct type of protein subunit and has its own characteristic shape and intracellular distribution.
Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) is a protein that is encoded by the GFAP gene in humans. [5] It is a type III intermediate filament (IF) protein that is expressed by numerous cell types of the central nervous system (CNS), including astrocytes [6] and ependymal cells during development. [7]
The proteins that form neurofilaments are members of the intermediate filament protein family, which is divided into six types based on their gene organization and protein structure. Types I and II are the keratins which are expressed in epithelia. Type III contains the proteins vimentin, desmin, peripherin and glial fibrillary acidic protein ...
The term cytokeratin began to be used in the late 1970s, when the protein subunits of keratin intermediate filaments inside cells were first being identified and characterized. [2] In 2006 a new systematic nomenclature for mammalian keratins was created, and the proteins previously called cytokeratins are simply called keratins (human ...