Strategies to Study Desmin in Cardiac Muscle and Culture Systems

Intermediate filament (IF) cytoskeleton comprises the fine-tuning cellular machinery regulating critical homeostatic mechanisms. In skeletal and cardiac muscle, deficiency or disturbance of the IF network leads to severe pathology, particularly in the latter. The three-dimensional scaffold of the muscle-specific IF protein desmin interconnects key features of the cardiac muscle cells, including the Z-disks, intercalated disks, plasma membrane, nucleus, mitochondria, lysosomes, and potentially sarcoplasmic reticulum. This is crucial for the highly organized striated muscle, in which effective energy production and transmission as well as mechanochemical signaling are tightly coordinated among the organelles and the contractile apparatus. The role of desmin and desmin-associated proteins in the biogenesis, trafficking, and organelle function, as well as the development, differentiation, and survival of the cardiac muscle begins to be enlightened, but the precise mechanisms remain elusive. We propose a set of experimental tools that can be used, in vivo and in vitro, to unravel crucial new pathways by which the IF cytoskeleton facilitates proper organelle function, homeostasis, and cytoprotection and further understand how its disturbance and deficiency lead to disease.