title: Lateral association and elongation of vimentin intermediate filament proteins: A time-resolved light-scattering study.
abstract: Vimentin intermediate filaments (IFs) are part of a family of proteins that constitute one of the three filament systems in the cytoskeleton, a major contributor to cell mechanics. One property that distinguishes IFs from the other cytoskeletal filament types, actin filaments and microtubules, is their highly hierarchical assembly pathway, where a lateral association step is followed by elongation. Here we present an innovative technique to follow the elongation reaction in solution and in situ by time-resolved static and dynamic light scattering, thereby precisely capturing the relevant time and length scales of seconds to minutes and 60-600 nm, respectively. We apply a quantitative model to our data and succeed in consistently describing the entire set of data, including particle mass, radius of gyration, and hydrodynamic radius during longitudinal association.
authors.affiliation: Department Chemie, Universität Paderborn, 33098 Paderborn, Germany.
authors.forename: Carlos G
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-6160-632X
authors.initials: CG
authors.lastname: Lopez
authors.affiliation: Institut für Röntgenphysik, Georg-August-Universitat Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Oliva
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Saldanha
authors.affiliation: Department Chemie, Universität Paderborn, 33098 Paderborn, Germany; klaus.huber@upb.de sarah.koester@phys.uni-goettingen.de.
authors.forename: Klaus
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.affiliation: Institut für Röntgenphysik, Georg-August-Universitat Göttingen, 37077 Göttingen, Germany klaus.huber@upb.de sarah.koester@phys.uni-goettingen.de.
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Köster
mesh_terms: D000067493:Dynamic Light Scattering; D006801:Humans; D007382:Intermediate Filaments / Q000378:metabolism*; D007700:Kinetics; D008958:Models, Molecular; D066329:Protein Aggregates; D000072417:Protein Domains; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D013997:Time Factors; D014746:Vimentin / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D066329:Protein Aggregates; D014746:Vimentin
keywords: cytoskeleton; intermediate filaments; self-assembly; time-resolved light scattering; vimentin