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.
Zhulina
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EB
Institute of Macromolecular Compounds of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia.
Leermakers
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FA
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