The polymer brush model of neurofilament projections: effect of protein composition.
Applying self-consistent field theory, we consider a coarse-grained model for the polymerlike projections of neurofilament (NF) proteins that form a brush structure around neurofilaments. We focus on effects of molecular composition, which is the relative occurrence of NF-H, NF-M, and NF-L proteins, on the organization of NF projection domains. We consider NF brushes with selectively truncated projections, and with a varied ratio L:H:M of constituent tails. Our conclusion is that the NF brush structure is remarkably tolerant with respect to the variation in M and H chains. Results compare favorably with experimental data on model animals, provided that due attention is paid on the level of phosphorylation of the KSP repeats.
Institute of Macromolecular Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia.
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Zhulina
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Leermakers
D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009154:Mutation; D016900:Neurofilament Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics; D010766:Phosphorylation; D013816:Thermodynamics
D016900:Neurofilament Proteins; C044882:neurofilament protein L; C051774:neurofilament protein H; C061195:neurofilament protein M