Plectin (PLEC)

Plectin is a prominent member of an important family of structurally and in part functionally related proteins, termed plakins or cytolinkers, that are capable of interlinking different elements of the cytoskeleton. Plakins, with their multi-domain structure and enormous size, not only play crucial roles in maintaining cell and tissue integrity and orchestrating dynamic changes in cytoarchitecture and cell shape, but also serve as scaffolding platforms for the assembly, positioning, and regulation of signaling complexes . The plectin gene locus in mouse on chromosome 15 has been analyzed in detail , revealing a genomic exon-intron organization with well over 40 exons spanning over 62 kb and an unusual 5""" transcript complexity of plectin isoforms.