Nestin (protein)
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Nestin is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NES gene.
Nestin (acronym for neuroectodermal stem cell marker) is a type VI intermediate filament (IF) protein. These intermediate filament proteins are expressed mostly in nerve cells where they are implicated in the radial growth of the axon. Seven genes encode for the heavy (NF-H), medium (NF-M) and light neurofilament (NF-L) proteins, nestin and α-internexin in nerve cells, synemin α and desmuslin/synemin β (two alternative transcripts of the DMN gene) in muscle cells, and syncoilin (also in muscle cells). Members of this group mostly preferentially coassemble as heteropolymers in tissues. Steinert et al. has shown that nestin forms homodimers and homotetramers but does not form IF by itself in vitro. In mixtures, nestin preferentially co-assembles with purified vimentin or the type IV IF protein -internexin to form heterodimer coiled-coil molecules.
Structurally, nestin has the shortest head domain (N-terminus) and the longest tail domain (C-terminus) of all the IF proteins. Nestin is of high molecular weight (240kDa) with a terminus greater than 500 residues (compared to cytokeratins and lamins with termini less than 50 residues).
After subcloning the human nestin gene into plasmid vectors, Dahlstrand et al. determined the nucleotide sequence of all coding regions and parts of the introns. In order to establish the boundaries of the introns, they used the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to amplify a fragment made from human fetal brain cDNA using two primers located in the first and fourth exon, respectively. The resulting 270 base pair (bp) long fragment was then sequenced directly in its entirety, and intron positions precisely located by comparison with the genomic sequence. Putative initiation and stop codons for the human nestin gene were found at the same positions as in the rat gene, in regions where overall similarity was very high. Based on this assumption, the human nestin gene encodes a protein with 1618 amino acids, i.e. 187 amino acids shorter than the rat protein.
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