Studies over the years have described a filamentous structure to mature elastin that suggests a complicated packing arrangement of tropoelastin subunits. The currently accepted mechanism for tropoelastin assembly requires microfibrils to serve as a physical extracellular scaffold for alignment of tropoelastin monomers during and before crosslinking. However, recent evidence suggests that the initial stages of tropoelastin assembly occur within the cell or at unique assembly sites on the plasma membrane where tropoelastin self assembles to form elastin aggregates. Outside the cell, elastin aggregates transfer to growing elastic fibers in the extracellular matrix where tensional forces on microfibrils generated through cell movement help shape the growing fiber. Overall, these observations challenge the widely held idea that interaction between monomeric tropoelastin and microfibrils is a requirement for elastin assembly, and point to self-assembly of tropoelastin as a driving force in elastin maturation.

中文翻译：

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弹性纤维超微结构和组装。

多年来的研究已经描述了成熟弹性蛋白的丝状结构，这表明原弹性蛋白亚基具有复杂的堆积排列。目前公认的弹性蛋白原组装机制需要微纤维作为物理细胞外支架，用于在交联过程中和交联之前对齐弹性蛋白原单体。然而，最近的证据表明，原弹性蛋白组装的初始阶段发生在细胞内或质膜上的独特组装位点，在那里原弹性蛋白自组装形成弹性蛋白聚集体。在细胞外，弹性蛋白聚集体转移到细胞外基质中生长的弹性纤维上，其中通过细胞运动产生的微纤维上的张力有助于塑造生长中的纤维。总体，