Nestin

Nestin (NES) is a 177 kDa intermediate filament protein essential for brain and eye development (UniProt: P48681). It regulates neural progenitor cell survival and proliferation by promoting the disassembly of phosphorylated vimentin intermediate filaments during mitosis, facilitating protein trafficking and distribution to daughter cells during progenitor division.

Nestin is primarily expressed in neural tissues where it supports developmental processes. In the UniProt database, no disease associations are listed for this protein, though its developmental role suggests relevance to neural homeostasis.

Nestin is upregulated in Alzheimer's Disease brain tissue. Human post-mortem AD brain proteomics comparing disease to age-matched controls identified nestin as significantly elevated, with a mean log2 fold-change of 0.97 across analyzed subcellular fractions (Chaparral AD proteomics). This upregulation may reflect altered neural progenitor dynamics or reactive glial responses in the AD brain microenvironment.