biology

Vinculin family

Vinculin family is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Vinculin family rather than just read about it. In short: Vinculin is a eukaryotic protein that seems to be involved in the attachment of the actin-based microfilaments to the plasma membrane. Vinculin is located at the cytoplasmic side of focal contacts or adhesion plaques.

Key takeaways

Vinculin family belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Vinculin family to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Vinculin family from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Vinculin is a eukaryotic protein that seems to be involved in the attachment of the actin-based microfilaments to the plasma membrane. Vinculin is located at the cytoplasmic side of focal contacts or adhesion plaques. In addition to actin, vinculin interacts with other structural proteins such as talin and alpha-actinins. Vinculin is a large protein of 116 kDa (about a 1000 residues). Structurally the protein consists of an acidic N-terminal domain of about 90 kDa separated from a basic C-terminal domain of about 25 kDa by a proline-rich region of about 50 residues. The central part of the N-terminal domain consists of a variable number (3 in vertebrates, 2 in Caenorhabditis elegans) of repeats of a 110 amino acids domain. Alpha-catenins are evolutionary related to vinculin. Catenins are proteins that associate with the cytoplasmic domain of a variety of cadherins. The association of catenins to cadherins produces a complex which is linked to the actin filament network, and which seems to be of primary importance for cadherins cell-adhesion properties. Three different types of catenins seem to exist: alpha, beta, and gamma. Alpha-catenins are proteins of about 100 kDa which are evolutionary related to vinculin. In terms of their structure the most significant differences are the absence, in alpha-catenin, of the repeated domain and of the proline-rich segment.

Subfamilies Vinculin InterPro: IPR000633 Alpha-catenin InterPro: IPR001033

Human proteins containing this domain CTNNA1; CTNNA2; CTNNA3; CTNNAL1; VCL;

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Vinculin family

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Vinculin family claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Vinculin family before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Vinculin family ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Vinculin family

In research: Vinculin family appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Vinculin family in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Vinculin family is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Membrane proteins, Protein domains, Protein families, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Vinculin family outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Vinculin family” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Vinculin family in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Vinculin family means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Vinculin family out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Vinculin family in simple terms?

Why does Vinculin family matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Vinculin family?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Vinculin family.