a) Explain the polarity of monomers of intermediate
filaments? What it results from?
b) Although it is not possible to distinguish the polarity of
intermediate filaments. Explain why
a) An intermediate filament is made up of a bundle of eight protofilaments and has a thickness of approximately 10nm. Intermediate filaments unlike other cytoskeletal proteins (microtubules and actins) lack polarity and are quite stable in nature.They lack any polarity because it's subunits are elongated and are associated in an antipolar manner.
b) Intermediate filaments are very diverse in nature and around 65 genes in humans have been identified so far that code for intermediate filaments. This along with it's non-polar nature(which is because of the arrangement of it's subunits) is the most probable reason.
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