Vinculin
| Gene Ontology | |
|---|---|
| Molecular function | • dystroglycan binding • actin binding • structural molecule activity • protein binding • beta-catenin binding • Rho GTPase binding • alpha-catenin binding • cadherin binding |
| Cellular component | • stress fiber • extracellular region • cytosol • cytoskeleton • actin filament • cell-cell junction • adherens junction • cell-cell adherens junction • fascia adherens • focal adhesion • cell-substrate junction • costamere • protein complex |
| Biological process | • morphogenesis of an epithelium • platelet degranulation • cellular component movement • muscle contraction • cell adhesion • cell-matrix adhesion • blood coagulation • lamellipodium assembly • platelet activation • negative regulation of cell migration • adherens junction assembly • protein localization to cell surface • apical junction assembly • epithelial cell-cell adhesion |
| Sources: Amigo / QuickGO | |
75.76 – 75.88 Mb
20.93 – 21.03 Mb
In mammalian cells, vinculin is a membrane-cytoskeletal protein in focal adhesion plaques that is involved in linkage of integrin adhesion molecules to the actin cytoskeleton. Discovered independently by Benny Geiger and Keith Burridge, its sequence is 20%-30% similar to α-catenin, which serves a similar function.
Binding alternately to talin or α-actinin, vinculin's shape and, as a consequence, its binding properties are changed. The vinculin gene occurs as a single copy and what appears to be no close relative to take over functions in its absence. Its splice variant metavinculin (see below) also needs vinculin to heterodimerize and work in a dependent fashion.
Vinculin is a cytoskeletal protein associated with cell-cell and cell-matrix junctions, where it is thought to function as one of several interacting proteins involved in anchoring F-actin to the membrane. Multiple alternatively-spliced transcript variants have been found for this gene, but the biological validity of some variants has not been determined. Human vinculin protein exhibits a greater-than-95% sequence identity to the chicken vinculin protein.
Read more about Vinculin: Structure, Conformation, Mechanism and Function, Vinculin Binding Site, Splice Variant: Metavinculin, Interactions