Fig. 1

Rooted phylogenetic tree of the human (Homo sapiens) intermediate filaments (IntFils). Protein sequences of the 54 human IntFil types I, II, III, IV, V and VI were retrieved from the Human Intermediate Filament Database and aligned—using maximum likelihood ClustalW Phyml with bootstrap values presented at the node: > 80%, red; 60–79%, yellow; less than 60%, black. Branches of the phylogenetic tree are seen at left. The IntFil protein names are listed in the first column. Abbreviations: GFAP, glial fibrillary acidic protein; NEFL, NEFH, and NEFM correspond to neurofilaments L, H & M respectively; KRT, keratin proteins; IFFO1, IFFO2 correspond to Intermediate filament family orphans 1 & 2 respectively. The IntFil types are listed in the second column and are color-coded as follows: Type I, grey; Type II, blue; Type III, red; Type IV, gold; Type V, black; Type VI, green, and N/A, non-classified, pink. Chromosomal location of each human IntFil gene is listed in the third column. Known isoforms of synemin and lamin are denoted by the two yellow boxes