Tropoelastin and Elastin Assembly

Jazmin Ozsvar; Chengeng Yang; Stuart A Cain; Clair Baldock; Anna Tarakanova; Anthony S Weiss

doi:10.3389/fbioe.2021.643110

Tropoelastin and Elastin Assembly

Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2021 Feb 25:9:643110. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2021.643110. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Jazmin Ozsvar^{1

2}, Chengeng Yang³, Stuart A Cain⁴, Clair Baldock⁴, Anna Tarakanova^{3

5}, Anthony S Weiss^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
² School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
³ Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States.
⁴ Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, Division of Cell-Matrix Biology and Regenerative Medicine, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, School of Biological Sciences, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
⁵ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, United States.
⁶ Sydney Nano Institute, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Abstract

Elastic fibers are an important component of the extracellular matrix, providing stretch, resilience, and cell interactivity to a broad range of elastic tissues. Elastin makes up the majority of elastic fibers and is formed by the hierarchical assembly of its monomer, tropoelastin. Our understanding of key aspects of the assembly process have been unclear due to the intrinsic properties of elastin and tropoelastin that render them difficult to study. This review focuses on recent developments that have shaped our current knowledge of elastin assembly through understanding the relationship between tropoelastin's structure and function.

Keywords: assembly; computational modeling; elastic fibers; elastin; tropoelastin.

Publication types

Review