The In Vitro Assembly of Hair Follicle Keratins: Comparison of Cortex and Companion Layer Keratins

    January 2002 in “ Biological chemistry ”
    Ilse Hofmann, Hermelita Winter, Norbert Mücke, Jörg Langowski, Jürgen Schweizer
    TLDR Different conditions affect how hair proteins assemble, and certain mutations can change their structure.
    The study compared the assembly of keratins from the companion layer (K6hf, K17) and the hair cortex (Ha1, Hb3, Hb6) of hair follicles synthesized in Escherichia coli. Both types of keratin mixtures formed heterotypic complexes in 5 M urea. In low ionic strength buffers, companion layer keratins assembled into intermediate filaments, while hair cortex keratins remained in an oligomeric state. However, hair cortex keratins formed intermediate filaments under physiological salt conditions. A point-mutated hair cortex keratin [Hb6(Glu402Lys)] did not form long filaments with Ha1, instead forming shorter structures similar to unit-length filaments.
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