ArticleThe EMBO journal1994
Chaperone activity of alpha-crystallins modulates intermediate filament assembly.
Article in The EMBO journal, 1994. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 126 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
126 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 415 citations in OpenAlex.
- Integrating Forensic Autopsies with Proteomic Profiling for Suicide Risk Assessment: A Comprehensive Review of Literature.Current neuropharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Caenorhabditis elegans small heat-shock protein HSP-12.6 has a highly specialized protective function towards muscle thick filaments in vivo.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2026Article
- Synergistic Effects of Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein Mutation and Overexpression in the Pathogenesis of Alexander Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Disorder with consequence: Phosphorylation sites in HSPB5 yield distinct structural outcomes.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- TANGO2 binds crystallin alpha B and its loss causes desminopathy.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy-Associated CRYABInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Deletions in Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein Leading to Alterations in Intermediate Filament Assembly and Network Formation.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Role of the Alpha-B-Crystallin Protein in Cardiomyopathic Disease.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- A novel αB-crystallin R123W variant drives hypertrophic cardiomyopathy by promoting maladaptive calcium-dependent signal transduction.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2023Article
- Insights into the biochemical and biophysical mechanisms mediating the longevity of the transparent optics of the eye lens.The Journal of biological chemistry · 2022Review
- Article
- Effects of Alexander disease-associated mutations on the assembly and organization of GFAP intermediate filaments.Molecular biology of the cell · 2022Article
- Article
- Function and Fiber-Type Specific Distribution of Hsp60 and αB-Crystallin in Skeletal Muscles: Role of Physical Exercise.Biology · 2021Review
- Vimentin protects differentiating stem cells from stress.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Localization of the lens intermediate filament switch by imaging mass spectrometry.Experimental eye research · 2020Article
- Proteinaceous Transformers: Structural and Functional Variability of Human sHsps.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Review
- Article
- Neuromuscular Diseases Due to Chaperone Mutations: A Review and Some New Results.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020Review
- Mechanisms of Small Heat Shock Proteins.Cold Spring Harbor perspectives in biology · 2019Review
66 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Intermediate filaments are generally regarded as one of the most insoluble and resilient cytoskeletal structures of eukaryotic cells. In extracts from the ocular lens, we noticed an unusually high level of vimentin in a soluble, non-filamentous form. Immunoprecipitation of this soluble vimentin resulted in the co-precipitation of alpha-crystallins. The alpha-crystallins are homologous to the small heat shock proteins (sHSPs) and have recently been identified as molecular chaperones, capable of preventing the heat-induced aggregation of proteins. We find that the alpha-crystallins dramatically inhibit the in vitro assembly of GFAP and vimentin in an ATP-independent manner. This inhibition is also independent of the phosphorylation state of the alpha-crystallin polypeptides and each one of the four polypeptides, either alpha A1-, alpha A2-, alpha B1- or alpha B2-crystallin, are equally effective in this inhibition. Furthermore, we show that alpha-crystallins can increase the soluble pool of GFAP when added to preformed filaments. Electron microscopy demonstrated that alpha-crystallin particles could bind to intermediate filaments in a regular fashion, the spacing coinciding with the molecular length of GFAP. This is the first report, as far as we are aware, of a chaperone being involved in intermediate filament assembly and implicates chaperones in the remodeling of intermediate filaments during development and cell differentiation.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.