The type III intermediate filament protein vimentin was once thought to function mainly as a
static structural protein in the cytoskeleton of cells of mesenchymal origin. Now, however,
vimentin is known to form a dynamic, flexible network that plays an important role in a
number of signaling pathways. Here, we describe various methods that have been
developed to investigate the cellular functions of the vimentin protein and intermediate
filament network, including chemical disruption, photoactivation and photoconversion …