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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2011 Aug 6.
Published in final edited form as: J Mol Biol. 2010 Jun 1;401(1):134–152. doi: 10.1016/j.jmb.2010.05.067

Fig. 10.

Fig. 10

A molecular model for age-related cataract formation in the lens. Environmental stresses could lead to covalent damage, such as deamidation or photo-oxidation, to the crystallins. This damage could destabilize γ-crystallins, which are otherwise very stable, populating aggregation-prone species (I*). α-crystallin would sequester such species in younger individuals (green arrow). But as we age, the finite levels of free α-crystallin in the mature lens fibers will be diminished leading to aggregation (orange arrows).