Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Vimentin

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules

  • 69 Accesses

Synonyms

VIM

Historical Background

Intermediate filaments (IF) are a family of proteins that are an important cytoskeletal component. Vimentin is a Type III intermediate filament that is primarily found in mesenchymal cells. Initially, it was assumed that the IFs served purely as a structural entity to give cells their shape and maintain their integrity. Over the past two decades, numerous roles and functions of the vimentin protein have been uncovered such as cellular migration, adhesion, and signaling. Historically, vimentin has been used as a tumor marker (Kidd et al. 2014). Moreover, recent research has uncovered that the IF protein is involved in numerous aspects of cancer development such as metastasis and the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) (Mendez et al. 2010). Additionally, it has become clear in recent years that vimentin may also play a role in several other pathologies such as colitis (Mor-Vaknin et al. 2013), Crohn’s disease (Henderson et al. 2012), and...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Byun Y, Chen F, Chang R, Trivedi M, Green KJ, Cryns VL. Caspase cleavage of vimentin disrupts intermediate filaments and promotes apoptosis. Cell Death Differ. 2001;8:443–50. doi:10.1038/sj.cdd.4400840.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chang L, Goldman RD. Intermediate filaments mediate cytoskeletal crosstalk. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2004;5:601–13. doi:10.1038/nrm1438.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cheng F, Shen Y, Mohanasundaram P, Lindstrom M, Ivaska J, Ny T, et al. Vimentin coordinates fibroblast proliferation and keratinocyte differentiation in wound healing via TGF-beta-slug signaling. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2016;113:E4320–7. doi:10.1073/pnas.1519197113.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Chernoivanenko IS, Matveeva EA, Gelfand VI, Goldman RD, Minin AA. Mitochondrial membrane potential is regulated by vimentin intermediate filaments. FASEB J. 2015;29:820–7. doi:10.1096/fj.14-259903.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Chernyatina AA, Nicolet S, Aebi U, Herrmann H, Strelkov SV. Atomic structure of the vimentin central alpha-helical domain and its implications for intermediate filament assembly. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2012;109:13620–5. doi:10.1073/pnas.1206836109.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • dos Santos G, Rogel MR, Baker MA, Troken JR, Urich D, Morales-Nebreda L, et al. Vimentin regulates activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Nat Commun. 2015;6:6574. doi:10.1038/ncomms7574.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Eckes B, Colucci-Guyon E, Smola H, Nodder S, Babinet C, Krieg T, et al. Impaired wound healing in embryonic and adult mice lacking vimentin. J Cell Sci. 2000;113(Pt 13):2455–62.

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Eriksson JE, He T, Trejo-Skalli AV, Harmala-Brasken AS, Hellman J, Chou YH, et al. Specific in vivo phosphorylation sites determine the assembly dynamics of vimentin intermediate filaments. J Cell Sci. 2004;117:919–32. doi:10.1242/jcs.00906.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman RD. The role of three cytoplasmic fibers in BHK-21 cell motility. I. Microtubules and the effects of colchicine. J Cell Biol. 1971;51:752–62.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Goto H, Kosako H, Tanabe K, Yanagida M, Sakurai M, Amano M, et al. Phosphorylation of vimentin by Rho-associated kinase at a unique amino-terminal site that is specifically phosphorylated during cytokinesis. J Biol Chem. 1998;273:11728–36.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Goto H, Yasui Y, Kawajiri A, Nigg EA, Terada Y, Tatsuka M, et al. Aurora-B regulates the cleavage furrow-specific vimentin phosphorylation in the cytokinetic process. J Biol Chem. 2003;278:8526–30. doi:10.1074/jbc.M210892200.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gyoeva FK, Gelfand VI. Coalignment of vimentin intermediate filaments with microtubules depends on kinesin. Nature. 1991;353:445–8. doi:10.1038/353445a0.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Henderson P, Wilson DC, Satsangi J, Stevens C. A role for vimentin in Crohn disease. Autophagy. 2012;8:1695–6. doi:10.4161/auto.21690.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Herrmann H, Haner M, Brettel M, Muller SA, Goldie KN, Fedtke B, et al. Structure and assembly properties of the intermediate filament protein vimentin: the role of its head, rod and tail domains. J Mol Biol. 1996;264:933–53. doi:10.1006/jmbi.1996.0688.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hookway C, Ding L, Davidson MW, Rappoport JZ, Danuser G, Gelfand VI. Microtubule-dependent transport and dynamics of vimentin intermediate filaments. Mol Biol Cell. 2015;26:1675–86. doi:10.1091/mbc.E14-09-1398.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ivaska J, Vuoriluoto K, Huovinen T, Izawa I, Inagaki M, Parker PJ. PKCepsilon-mediated phosphorylation of vimentin controls integrin recycling and motility. EMBO J. 2005;24:3834–45. doi:10.1038/sj.emboj.7600847.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ivaska J, Pallari HM, Nevo J, Eriksson JE. Novel functions of vimentin in cell adhesion, migration, and signaling. Exp Cell Res. 2007;313:2050–62. doi:10.1016/j.yexcr.2007.03.040.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kidd ME, Shumaker DK, Ridge KM. The role of vimentin intermediate filaments in the progression of lung cancer. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2014;50:1–6. doi:10.1165/rcmb.2013-0314TR.

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Li QF, Spinelli AM, Wang R, Anfinogenova Y, Singer HA, Tang DD. Critical role of vimentin phosphorylation at Ser-56 by p21-activated kinase in vimentin cytoskeleton signaling. J Biol Chem. 2006;281:34716–24. doi:10.1074/jbc.M607715200.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Mendez MG, Kojima S, Goldman RD. Vimentin induces changes in cell shape, motility, and adhesion during the epithelial to mesenchymal transition. FASEB J. 2010;24:1838–51. doi:10.1096/fj.09-151639.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Mendez MG, Restle D, Janmey PA. Vimentin enhances cell elastic behavior and protects against compressive stress. Biophys J. 2014;107:314–23. doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2014.04.050.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Mor-Vaknin N, Legendre M, Yu Y, Serezani CH, Garg SK, Jatzek A, et al. Murine colitis is mediated by vimentin. Sci Rep. 2013;3:1045. doi:10.1038/srep01045.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Muller M, Bhattacharya SS, Moore T, Prescott Q, Wedig T, Herrmann H, et al. Dominant cataract formation in association with a vimentin assembly disrupting mutation. Hum Mol Genet. 2009;18:1052–7. doi:10.1093/hmg/ddn440.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nekrasova OE, Mendez MG, Chernoivanenko IS, Tyurin-Kuzmin PA, Kuczmarski ER, Gelfand VI, et al. Vimentin intermediate filaments modulate the motility of mitochondria. Mol Biol Cell. 2011;22:2282–9. doi:10.1091/mbc.E10-09-0766.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Nieminen M, Henttinen T, Merinen M, Marttila-Ichihara F, Eriksson JE, Jalkanen S. Vimentin function in lymphocyte adhesion and transcellular migration. Nat Cell Biol. 2006;8:156–62. doi:10.1038/ncb1355.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Perez-Sala D, Oeste CL, Martinez AE, Carrasco MJ, Garzon B, Canada FJ. Vimentin filament organization and stress sensing depend on its single cysteine residue and zinc binding. Nat Commun. 2015;6:7287. doi:10.1038/ncomms8287.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Perreau J, Lilienbaum A, Vasseur M, Paulin D. Nucleotide sequence of the human vimentin gene and regulation of its transcription in tissues and cultured cells. Gene. 1988;62:7–16.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Robert A, Rossow MJ, Hookway C, Adam SA, Gelfand VI. Vimentin filament precursors exchange subunits in an ATP-dependent manner. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2015;112:E3505–14. doi:10.1073/pnas.1505303112.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Rogel MR, Soni PN, Troken JR, Sitikov A, Trejo HE, Ridge KM. Vimentin is sufficient and required for wound repair and remodeling in alveolar epithelial cells. FASEB J. 2011;25:3873–83. doi:10.1096/fj.10-170795.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Schietke R, Brohl D, Wedig T, Mucke N, Herrmann H, Magin TM. Mutations in vimentin disrupt the cytoskeleton in fibroblasts and delay execution of apoptosis. Eur J Cell Biol. 2006;85:1–10. doi:10.1016/j.ejcb.2005.09.019.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sin WC, Chen XQ, Leung T, Lim L. RhoA-binding kinase alpha translocation is facilitated by the collapse of the vimentin intermediate filament network. Mol Cell Biol. 1998;18:6325–39.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens C, Henderson P, Nimmo ER, Soares DC, Dogan B, Simpson KW, et al. The intermediate filament protein, vimentin, is a regulator of NOD2 activity. Gut. 2013;62:695–707. doi:10.1136/gutjnl-2011-301775.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Virtakoivu R, Mai A, Mattila E, De Franceschi N, Imanishi SY, Corthals G, et al. Vimentin-ERK signaling uncouples slug gene regulatory function. Cancer Res. 2015;75:2349–62. doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-2842.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wang RC, Wei Y, An Z, Zou Z, Xiao G, Bhagat G, et al. Akt-mediated regulation of autophagy and tumorigenesis through Beclin 1 phosphorylation. Science. 2012;338:956–9. doi:10.1126/science.1225967.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Yamaguchi T, Goto H, Yokoyama T, Sillje H, Hanisch A, Uldschmid A, et al. Phosphorylation by Cdk1 induces Plk1-mediated vimentin phosphorylation during mitosis. J Cell Biol. 2005;171:431–6. doi:10.1083/jcb.200504091.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Zhu QS, Rosenblatt K, Huang KL, Lahat G, Brobey R, Bolshakov S, et al. Vimentin is a novel AKT1 target mediating motility and invasion. Oncogene. 2011;30:457–70. doi:10.1038/onc.2010.421.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Clarissa M Koch & Karen M Ridge

Authors
  1. Clarissa M Koch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Karen M Ridge
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Clarissa M Koch .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biological Science, Department of Molecular Science and Tech College of Natural Science, Suwon, Korea (Republic of)

    Sangdun Choi

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media LLC

About this entry

Cite this entry

Koch, C.M., Ridge, K.M. (2016). Vimentin. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_101951-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_101951-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6438-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6438-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation