Identification of Tropoelastin as a Ligand for the 65-kD

The folding and trafficking of tropoelastin is thought to be mediated by intracellular chaperones, although the identity and role of any tropoelastin chap-erone remain to be determined. To identify proteins that are associated with tropoelastin intracellularly, bi-functional chemical cross-linkers were used to co-valently stabilize interactions between tropoelastin and associated proteins in the secretory pathway in intact fetal bovine auricular chondrocytes. Immunoprecipi-tation of tropoelastin from cell lysates after cross-link-ing and analysis by SDS-PAGE showed the presence of two proteins o