Research
Our research laboratory is interested in the structure and function of intermediate filaments (IF) in mammalian cells, and we study both the cytoplasmic and nuclear forms of this protein. IF proteins have large regions of alpha helical structure, coming together to form dimers which in turn interact to form larger structures. In the cytoplasm these subunits self-assemble into long filaments that are 10 nm in diameter, examples being vimentin filaments found in mesenchymal cells such as fibroblasts and endothelial cells or keratin filaments found in skin cells and liver cells. The nuclear IFs, in contrast, form shorter and thinner filaments that interact to form meshworks mainly located just beneath the nuclear membrane.
Our Collaborators
- Volodya Gelfand (Northwestern University)
- Karen Ridge (Northwestern University)
- Puneet Opal (Northwestern University)
- David Weitz (Harvard University)
- Ohad Medalia (University of Zurich)
- Paul Janmey (University of Pennsylvania)
- Gaudenz Danuser (UT Southwestern)
- Francis Collins (National Institutes of Health)
- Xixian Zheng (Carneigie Institution for Science)
- Claire Waterman (National Institutes of Health)
- Denisa Wagner (Harvard Medical School)
- Ming Guo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)