Anti-Vimentin

Vimentin is a major constituent of the intermediate filament family of proteins whose expression correlates with increased metastatic disease, reduced patient survival and poor prognosis across multiple tumor types. It is ubiquitously expressed in normal mesenchymal cells and is known to maintain cellular integrity and provide resistance against stress. Vimentin is overexpressed in various epithelial cancers, including prostate cancer, gastrointestinal tumors, tumors of the central nervous system, breast cancer, malignant melanoma, and lung cancer. Vimentin shows dynamically altered expression patterns during different developmental stages and high sequence homology throughout all vertebrates, suggesting that the protein is physiologically important.Its overexpression in cancer correlates with accelerated tumor growth, invasion, and poor prognosis, however, the role of vimentin in cancer progression remains obscure. In the recent years, vimentin has gained much importance as a marker for epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). Protein function: Vimentins are class-III intermediate filaments found in various non-epithelial cells, especially mesenchymal cells. Vimentin is attached to the nucleus, endoplasmic reticulum, and mitochondria, either laterally or terminally. [The UniProt Consortium]