A silk purse from a sow's ear — bioinspired materials based on α-helical coiled coils

Roy A Quinlan,Elizabeth H Bromley,Ehmke Pohl

doi:10.1016/j.ceb.2014.12.010

Abstract

This past few years have heralded remarkable times for intermediate filaments with new revelations of their structural properties that has included the first crystallographic-based model of vimentin to build on the experimental data of intra-filament interactions determined by chemical cross-linking. Now with these and other advances on their assembly, their biomechanical and their cell biological properties outlined in this review, the exploitation of the biomechanical and structural properties of intermediate filaments, their nanocomposites and biomimetic derivatives in the biomedical and private sectors has started.

Highlights

Publisher's copyright statement: c 2015 The Authors
Width and radius can be controlled by the length of the assembly subunit, but subsequent hierarchical assembly for example [74,75,76] remains an emergent property that is poorly understood and, as length scales increase, the synthesis of specific microstructures is unpredictable
In living cells too intermediate filaments are key determinants of the cellular mechanical properties for example [78] and their networks proposed to be flaw tolerant [79], but they are integral to the cellular stress response [80,81]

Summary

Conclusions

The current state of the art regarding designed coiled coil filament assembles can be summarized as follows. We must appreciate their links to membranes and other cellular structures, whether it is the attachment of the nuclear lamina to the inner nuclear membrane for example [83] or the attachment of cytoplasmic filaments to the outer nuclear membrane for example [84] or to the plasma membrane and other membrane compartments within the cell for example [85,86], all are crucial to their biomechanical function and are further examples of their nanocomposite potential. Whilst there is currently a large gap between the functionality of synthetic and natural fibres, bioengineered nanocomposites [89] that can sense and transduce mechanical and environmental cues to produce transcriptional and translational responses [82] is a technological prize awaiting our full appreciation and application as a result of exploiting fully the meso-scale properties of intermediate filaments and their bioengineered mimics

Crick FHC

Bendit EG

35. Gillespie JM