A protein in drosophila has the similar characteristics with filamentous proteins

According to the report of physical website, every cell in the body has intermediate filaments proteins (IFs) which can help us avoid blisters, cataracts and dementia. But this kind of proteins is not found in the body of insects. Scientists suspect that insects have a different protein which plays a key role of filamentous proteins. But how the protein is like is still a mystery.

Currently, biologist Denise Montell from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) conducted a study - she and her colleagues unveiled the mystery. With the use of recombinant proteins, they found that there is a protein in drosophila that has the similar characteristics with filamentous proteins. Such unusual tropomyosins exist in every cell type. The study was published in a recent issue of the journal Cell Reports.

Denise said, "Believe it or not, drosophila and humans have a lot of common proteins, including the general tropomyosin. Their evolution comes from tropomyosin by only adding substances to the end of the tropomyosins to become a completely new protein with different features. It is like the intermediate filament protein but unlike ordinary tropomyosin. This new type of protein has an intermediate level, which means that they are greater than filamentous actin and smaller than microtubules. These are two other important structural filaments in cells."

Newly-discovered filamentous protein is equivalent to intermediate filament proteins in the human body. Under normal circumstances, tropomyosin form a rope-like structure - "coiled-coil". This thinner tropomyosin beam is wrapped around in fibrous protein actin and coils in a very small area. The latest discovery of the new type of protein is not like an ordinary tropomyosin. Flarebio provides you with high-quality recombinant proteins including recombinant ITGB2.