An anti vimentin antibody promotes tube formation.

In recent years, there has been an increasing appreciation of the importance of secreted and extracellular proteins that traditionally have been considered as intracellular components. Vimentin is a highly abundant intermediate filament protein, and its intracellular functions have been investigated in a large number of studies. Recently, however, vimentin has been shown to take part in significant processes outside the cell.

Confronting cellular heterogeneity in studies of protein metabolism and homeostasis in aging research.

In this chapter we review the different technologies that can be applied in the analysis of protein homeostasis and metabolism in aging research. Special focus will be on technologies with a potential to circumvent the problems associated with cell heterogeneity in biomarker discovery. Often studies aimed at increasing our understanding of cellular senescence take advantage of model systems.

Evaluation of endothelial cell culture as a model system of vascular ageing.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relevance of long-term endothelial cell culture as a model system of vascular ageing. Micro- and macrovascular endothelial cells were serially passaged until replicative senescence and their ability to form tube-like structures when cultured on Matrigel was assessed throughout their lifespan. For both cell types low passage cultures adopted a homogeneous cobblestone morphology, while senescent cultures were extremely heterogeneous.