{"doi":"10.1146/annurev-physchem-090419-121428","title":"α-Crystallins in the Vertebrate Eye Lens: Complex Oligomers and Molecular Chaperones","abstract":"<jats:p> α-Crystallins are small heat-shock proteins that act as holdase chaperones. In humans, αA-crystallin is expressed only in the eye lens, while αB-crystallin is found in many tissues. α-Crystallins have a central domain flanked by flexible extensions and form dynamic, heterogeneous oligomers. Structural models show that both the C- and N-terminal extensions are important for controlling oligomerization through domain swapping. α-Crystallin prevents aggregation of damaged β- and γ-crystallins by binding to the client protein using a variety of binding modes. α-Crystallin chaperone activity can be compromised by mutation or posttranslational modifications, leading to protein aggregation and cataract. Because of their high solubility and their ability to form large, functional oligomers, α-crystallins are particularly amenable to structure determination by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and solution NMR, as well as cryo-electron microscopy. </jats:p>","journal":"Annual Review of Physical Chemistry","year":2021,"id":22549,"datarank":1.5638031590117083,"base_score":4.189654742026425,"endowment":4.189654742026425,"self_citation_contribution":0.6284482113039639,"citation_network_contribution":0.9353549477077443,"self_endowment_contribution":0.6284482113039639,"citer_contribution":0.9353549477077443,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":65,"citer_count":63,"citers_with_citation_signal":46,"citers_with_endowment":46,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":141417,"name":"Megan A. 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