Have you seen the recent papers that question the traditional role of B-type lamins in DNA replication and transcription, but highlight an entirely novel yet fundamental role for lamin B1 (LB1) in cell proliferation and cellular senescence? Lamins are the evolutionary progenitors of the intermediate filament superfamily, and constitute the building blocks of the nuclear lamina. They are also a ...

The nuclear lamina is a thin (20 nm) yet insoluble protein meshwork that, in higher cells, lines the nucleoplasmic face of the nuclear envelope (NE). 1 The lamina is intimately associated with both the inner nuclear membrane and underlying chromatin, while at the same time providing anchoring sites for nuclear pore complexes (Gerace and Burke, 1988). Because of these extensive interactions, the...

Invertebrates and in Drosophila, lamins and lamin-associated proteins are primary targets for cleavage by caspases. Eliminating mammalian lamins causes apoptosis, whereas expressing mutant lamins that cannot be cleaved by caspase-6 delay apoptosis. Caenorhabditis elegans has a single lamin protein, Ce-lamin, and a caspase, CED-3, that is responsible for most if not all somatic apoptosis. In thi...

Nuclear lamins are components of the nuclear lamina, a structural scaffolding for the cell nucleus. Defects in lamins A and C cause an array of human diseases, including muscular dystrophy, lipodystrophy, and progeria, but no diseases have been linked to the loss of lamins B1 or B2. To explore the functional relevance of lamin B2, we generated lamin B2-deficient mice and found that they have se...

Lamins, the major components of the nuclear lamina, have gained rapidly increasing interest over the past decade as lamin mutations were found to cause numerous devastating diseases. These laminopathies include Emery–Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), dilated cardiomyopathy type 1A, limb-girdle muscular dystrophy type 1B, familial partial lipodystrophy (FPLD), Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease type ...

The A- and B-type lamins are nuclear intermediate filament proteins in eukaryotic cells with a broad range of functions, including the organization of nuclear architecture and interaction with proteins in many cellular functions. Over 180 disease-causing mutations, termed 'laminopathies,' have been mapped throughout LMNA, the gene for A-type lamins in humans. Laminopathies can range from muscul...

Lamins (LMNA) are the main proteins of the nuclear lamina considered to be the ancestors of all intermediate filament proteins. They form complex protein assemblies with integral proteins of the inner nuclear membrane, transcriptional regulators, histones and chromatin modifiers. During recent years, interest in lamins has greatly increased due to the identification of many distinct heritable h...

Interconnected functional strategies govern chromatin dynamics in eukaryotic cells. In this context, A and B type lamins, the nuclear intermediate filaments, act on diverse platforms involved in tissue homeostasis. On the nuclear side, lamins elicit large scale or fine chromatin conformational changes, affect DNA damage response factors and transcription factor shuttling. On the cytoplasmic sid...

Recent studies have shown that premature cellular senescence and normal organ development and function depend on the type V intermediate filament proteins, the lamins, which are major structural proteins of the nucleus. This review presents an up-to-date summary of the literature describing new findings on lamin functions in various cellular processes and emphasizes the relationship between the...

ins have affinity for DNA, chromatin, and histones (see Stuurman et al., 1998), which might allow interior lamins to associate with and organize chromatin. For example, Katherine L. Wilson,* Michael S. Zastrow, and Kenneth K. Lee Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy lamins are essential for DNA replication, which is initiJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine ated in a spatially organize...