Evans R M
Department of Pathology, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver 80262, USA.
Bioessays. 1998 Jan;20(1):79-86. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1521-1878(199801)20:1<79::AID-BIES11>3.0.CO;2-5.
Intermediate filaments are a major component of the "cytoskeleton" of "higher" eukaryotes. These filaments are composed of a number of different, although structurally related, proteins. Different intermediate filament protein genes are expressed in different tissues. Spontaneous and experimentally produced mutations in the intermediate filament genes indicate that these filaments function to enhance the mechanical stability of epidermal and muscle cells. As a result, the use of transgenic mice with "knockout" or dominant negative mutations in IF genes has become an important approach for investigating the significance of IFs in other cell types. However, a knockout mutation of vimentin (-/-), the intermediate filament protein characteristically expressed in cells of mesenchymal origin, results in very subtle phenotypes that are not obviously related to cell fragility. Although experiments with cultured cells have described a variety of discrete changes in cell properties that are associated with vimentin expression or organization, there is no evidence yet that any of these properties are affected in the vimentin-/- mouse.
中间丝是“高等”真核生物“细胞骨架”的主要组成部分。这些丝由许多不同但结构相关的蛋白质组成。不同的中间丝蛋白基因在不同组织中表达。中间丝基因的自发突变和实验诱导突变表明，这些丝的作用是增强表皮细胞和肌肉细胞的机械稳定性。因此，利用在中间丝基因中具有“敲除”或显性负性突变的转基因小鼠已成为研究中间丝在其他细胞类型中意义的重要方法。然而，波形蛋白（-/-）的敲除突变，即间充质来源细胞中特征性表达的中间丝蛋白，导致非常细微的表型，这些表型与细胞脆性没有明显关系。尽管对培养细胞的实验描述了与波形蛋白表达或组织相关的细胞特性的各种离散变化，但尚无证据表明波形蛋白敲除小鼠的任何这些特性受到影响。
