Issue 42, 2018

Effect of ionic strength on the structure and elongational kinetics of vimentin filaments

Abstract

Intermediate filaments are a major structural element in the cytoskeleton of animal cells that mechanically integrate other cytoskeletal components and absorb externally applied stress. Their role is likely to be linked to their complex molecular architecture which is the product of a multi-step assembly pathway. Intermediate filaments form tetrameric subunits which assemble in the presence of monovalent salts to form unit length filaments that subsequently elongate by end-to-end annealing. The present work characterizes this complex assembly process using reconstituted vimentin intermediate filaments with monovalent salts as an assembly trigger. A multi-scale approach is used, comprising static light scattering, dynamic light scattering and quantitative scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) mass measurements. Light scattering reveals the radius of gyration (Rg), molecular weight (Mw) and diffusion coefficient (D) of the assembling filaments as a function of time and salt concentration (cS) for the given protein concentration of 0.07 g L−1. At low cS (10 mM KCl) no lateral or elongational growth is observed, whereas at cS = 50–200 mM, the hydrodynamic cross-sectional radius and the elongation rate increases with cS. Rgversus Mw plots suggest that the mass per unit length increases with increasing salt content, which is confirmed by STEM mass measurements. A kinetic model based on rate equations for a two step process is able to accurately describe the variation of mass, length and diffusion coefficient of the filaments with time and provides a consistent description of the elongation accelerated by increasing cS.

Graphical abstract: Effect of ionic strength on the structure and elongational kinetics of vimentin filaments

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
16 May 2018
Accepted
24 Aug 2018
First published
27 Aug 2018

Soft Matter, 2018,14, 8445-8454

Effect of ionic strength on the structure and elongational kinetics of vimentin filaments

C. G. Lopez, O. Saldanha, A. Aufderhorst-Roberts, C. Martinez-Torres, M. Kuijs, G. H. Koenderink, S. Köster and K. Huber, Soft Matter, 2018, 14, 8445 DOI: 10.1039/C8SM01007B

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements