Here we investigate the effects of a myopathy-causing mutation in ␣B-crystallin, Q151X, upon its structure and function. This mutation removes the C-terminal domain of ␣B-crystallin, which is expected to compromise both its oligomerization and chaperone activity. We compared this to two other ␣B-crystallin mutants (450delA, 464delCT) and also to a series of C-terminal truncations (E164X, E165X, K174X, and A171X). We find that the effects of the Q151X mutation were not always as predicted. Specifically, we have found that although the Q151X mutation decreased oligomerization of ␣B-crystallin and even increased some chaperone activities, it also significantly destabilized ␣B-crystallin causing it to self-aggregate. This conclusion was supported by our analyses of both the other disease-causing mutants and the series of C-terminal truncation constructs of ␣B-crystallin. The 450delA and 464delCT mutants could only be refolded and assayed as a complex with wild type ␣B-crystallin, which was not the case for Q151X ␣B-crystallin. From these studies, we conclude that all three disease-causing mutations (450delA, 464delCT, and Q151X) in the C-terminal extension destabilize ␣B-crystallin and increase its tendency to self-aggregate. We propose that it is this, rather than a catastrophic loss of chaperone activity, which is a major factor in the development of the reported diseases for the three disease-causing mutations studied here. In support of this hypothesis, we show that Q151X ␣B-crystallin is found mainly in the insoluble fraction of cell extracts from transient transfected cells, due to the formation of cytoplasmic aggregates.The crystallins were first identified as the major proteins of the eye lens and their subsequent classification into ␣-, ␤-, and ␥-crystallins (1) allowed different functional properties to be assigned to the ␣-and ␤␥-crystallin groups (2). The ␣-crystallins are two distinct proteins derived from two separate genes, ␣A-and ␣B-crystallin (2). Whereas ␣A-crystallin is almost entirely lens specific (3), ␣B-crystallin is expressed widely in other tissues, most notably astrocytes (4) and muscle (5). In the early 1980s, pioneering work from Klemenz and co-workers (6) and Horwitz (7) laboratories established that ␣B-crystallin was a protein chaperone and a member of the small heat shock protein (sHSP) 2 family, that is now known to comprise 10 different human proteins (8).When the first mutation (R120G) in ␣B-crystallin was reported, it was found to cause both cataract and desmin-related myopathy in the affected patients (9). Characteristic histopathological aggregates of the muscle intermediate filament protein desmin were observed (9), strongly suggesting that there is an important functional interaction between intermediate filaments and ␣B-crystallin. Subsequent analyses showed that the R120G ␣B-crystallin mutation induced increased binding for desmin intermediate filaments (10), providing an explanation for the formation of the desmin aggregates in the muscles of the affected individuals. Coinci...