NF-L and NF-M are expressed in epithelial cells and coassemble with keratin or vimentin

Neurofilaments (NFs) and cytokeratins are both heteropolymers, which assemble into intermediate filaments (IFs) only when other proper IF subunit proteins are expressed simultaneously. To study the assembly property of NFs, we constructed two recombinant adenovirus which could express NF-L or NF-M, fused with green fluorescent protein (GFP) respectively. Then they were introduced into vero cells, and expressed fusion protein. Double labels of GFP fluorescence and immunofluorescence staining indicated that NF-L-GFP or GFP-NF-M not only coassembled with endogenous vimentins, but also coassembled with keratins into a cytoplasmic network of filaments.