Berlin 2012 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 7: Posters: Proteins

BP 7.37: Poster

Montag, 26. März 2012, 17:30–19:30, Poster A

Investigation of desmin intermediate filament assembly by atomic force microscopy — •Mareike Dieding¹, Volker Walhorn¹, Andreas Brodehl², Hendrik Milting², and Dario Anselmetti¹ — ¹Experimental Biophysics & Applied Nanoscience, Bielefeld University, Germany — ²E. & H. Klessmann Institute for Cardiovascular Research & Development, Heart and Diabetes Centre NRW, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bad Oeynhausen, Germany

Intermediate filament (IF) proteins form extended filamentous networks in metazoan cells. Desmin IF is a vital structural component of the cytoskeleton in myocytes. In line with the functional importance of desmin, we investigated several desmin mutants associated with the inherited heart muscle disease arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), which is a major cause of sudden cardiac death in adolescent and athletes.

Using atomic force microscopy (AFM), we studied desmin oligomers at different stages of the in vitro assembly process. Thereby we were able to reveal various mutation specific structural defects at distinct stages of the filament assembly. These findings are nicely supported by complementary methods like cell transfection studies [1,2].

[1] A. Brodehl et al., Dual-color photoactivation localization microscopy of cardiomyopathy associated desmin mutants, submitted.

[2] B. Klauke et al., De novo desmin-mutation N116S is associated with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, Hum. Mol. Genet. 19(23), 2010.