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An in vivo intermediate filament assembly model. (English) Zbl 1159.92014

Summary: A model is developed to study the in vivo intermediate filament organization in terms of repartition between four different structural states: soluble proteins, particles, short, and long filaments. An analysis is conducted, showing that the system has a unique, globally asymptotically stable equilibrium. By means of sensitivity analysis, the influence of parameters on the system is studied. It is shown that, in agreement with biological observations, posttranslational modifications of intermediate filament proteins resulting in filament solubilization are the main regulators of the intermediate filament organization. A high signalling-dependent solubilization of filaments favours the intermediate filament aggregation in particles.

MSC:

92C37 Cell biology
92C05 Biophysics
34D23 Global stability of solutions to ordinary differential equations
37N25 Dynamical systems in biology