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Providing structural support and protection against such conditions as blistering, cataracts and dementia, intermediate filament proteins (IFs) reside in every cell in the human body. In insects, however, IFs are nowhere to be found.
Scientists posit that another kind of protein has taken over key IF functions in insects, but exactly what kind—or even where to start looking—has been a mystery.
New research conducted by UC Santa Barbara biologist Denise Montell and her team of scientists may have solved the conundrum. They discovered a protein in fruit flies that demonstrates IF-like characteristics. An unusual form of the protein tropomyosin was present in every cell type they examined. Their findings appear in the journal Cell Reports.
"Believe it or not, fruit flies and humans have a lot of proteins in common, including conventional tropomyosin," said Montell, the Robert and Patricia Duggan Chair in Mathematical, Life, and Physical Sciences in UCSB's Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology.