Previous studies have used the zebrafish to investigate the biology of lens crystallin proteins and their roles in development and disease. However, little is known about zebrafish α-crystallin promoter function, how it compares to that of mammals, or whether mammalian α-crystallin promoter activity can be assessed using zebrafish embryos. We injected a variety of α-crystallin promoter fragment...

Purpose Anti-crystallin autoantibodies have been often demonstrated in patients with cataract but only few studies point out on autoantibodies directed against the different crystallin classes. Our aim was to determmr the prevalence of antI-a-, anti-p, or antI-7 crystalho autoantibodIes m sera from 54 patients with lugh level of anti-total lens extract antibodies in comparison to control group ...

Disorganisation and aggregation of proteins containing expanded polyglutamine (polyQ) repeats, or ectopic expression of α-synuclein, underlie neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson, Huntington, Creutzfeldt diseases. Small heat-shock proteins, such as αB-crystallin, act as chaperones to prevent protein aggregation and play a key role in the prevention of such protein disorga...

The alphaB-crystallin and HspB2 genes are located approximately 0.9 kb apart in a head-to-head arrangement in mammals. Previous experiments have shown that a truncated -668/+45 alphaB-crystallin enhancer/promoter fragment from blind mole rats (Spalax ehrenbergi), which have nonfunctional lenses, lacks lens activity and has enhanced muscle activity in transgenic mice. Here we show that the full-...

aB-Crystallin is a 20-kd peptide highly homologous to the small heat-shock proteins. This protein forms soluble homomultimeric complexes (M, 300-700 kd) and is very abundant in cardiac muscle cells. In vitro experiments (affinity column chromatography and binding studies with isolated proteins) have shown that aB-crystallin interacts directly with actin and, in particular, with desmin filaments...

BACKGROUND One approach to resolving some of the in vivo functions of alpha-crystallin is to generate animal models where one or both of the alpha-crystallin gene products have been eliminated. In the single alpha-crystallin knockout mice, the remaining alpha-crystallin may fully or partially compensate for some of the functions of the missing protein, especially in the lens, where both alpha A...

BACKGROUND Laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), being an aggressive malignancy, is one of the most commonly diagnosed malignant types of head and neck SCC worldwide. The recent studies suggested that αB-crystallin might play an important role in tumorigenesis. The purpose of this study was to investigate the αB-crystallin expression level in metastatic and nonmetastatic laryngeal SCC tissue...

βA3/A1-crystallin is an abundant structural protein of the lens that is very critical for lens function. Many different genetic mutations have been shown to associate with different types of cataracts in humans and in animal models. βA3/A1-crystallin has four Greek key-motifs that organize into two crystallin domains. It shown to bind calcium with moderate affinity and has putative calcium-bind...

alpha-Crystallin is known to exhibit chaperone-like activity. We have studied its chaperone-like activity toward the aggregation of betaL-crystallin upon refolding of this protein from its unfolded state in guanidinium chloride. The chaperone-like activity of alpha-crystallin is less pronounced below 30 degrees C and is enhanced above this temperature. The plot of percentage protection as a fun...

PURPOSE AlphaB-Crystallin is a small heat shock protein (sHsp) expressed at high levels in the lens of the eye, where its molecular chaperone functions may protect against cataract formation in vivo. The purpose of this study was to identify protein targets for the sHsp alphaB-crystallin in lens cell homogenates during conditions of mild thermal stress. METHODS The authors report the use of a...