Intermediate filaments: not so tough after all
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Updated: Aug 17, 2026

Disentangling High Strength Copolymer Aramid Fibers to Enable the Determination of Their Mechanical Properties
Published on: September 1, 2018
O Skalli1, Y H Chou, R D Goldman
1Department of Cell, Molecular and Structural Biology, Northwestern University Medical School, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611, USA.
Abstract:
The dynamic properties of cellular protein polymers such as microtubules and microfilaments depend to a large extent on the cell's capacity to modify rapidly the exchange rate between polymerized and unpolymerized pools of subunits. Until quite recently the dynamic nature of intermediate filaments was underestimated because of their biochemical stability in vitro and a paucity of studies on their characteristics in vivo. However, the recent studies described in this review show that the karyoskeletal and cytoskeletal structures that assemble from many intermediate filament proteins possess the properties expected of dynamic protein polymer networks.
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