Academic literature on the topic 'Torpedo 87K protein'

Dystrophin-related and associated proteins are important for the formation and maintenance of the mammalian neuromuscular junction. Initial studies in the electric organ of Torpedo californica showed that the dystrophin-related protein dystrobrevin (87K) co-purifies with the acetylcholine receptors and other postsynaptic proteins. Dystrobrevin is also a major phosphotyrosine-containing protein in the postsynaptic membrane. Since inhibitors of tyrosine protein phosphorylation block acetylcholine receptor clustering in cultured muscle cells, we examined the role of alpha-dystrobrevin during synapse formation and in response to agrin. Using specific antibodies, we show that C2 myoblasts and early myotubes only produce alpha-dystrobrevin-1, the mammalian orthologue of Torpedo dystrobrevin, whereas mature skeletal muscle expresses three distinct alpha-dystrobrevin isoforms. In myotubes, alpha-dystrobrevin-1 is found on the cell surface and also in acetylcholine receptor-rich domains. Following agrin stimulation, alpha-dystrobrevin-1 becomes re-localised beneath the cell surface into macroclusters that contain acetylcholine receptors and another dystrophin-related protein, utrophin. This redistribution is not associated with tyrosine phosphorylation of alpha-dystrobrevin-1 by agrin. Furthermore, we show that alpha-dystrobrevin-1 is associated with both utrophin in C2 cells and dystrophin in mature skeletal muscle. Thus alpha-dystrobrevin-1 is a component of two protein complexes in muscle, one with utrophin at the neuromuscular junction and the other with dystrophin at the sarcolemma. These results indicate that alpha-dystrobrevin-1 is not involved in the phosphorylation-dependent, early stages of receptor clustering, but rather in the stabilisation and maturation of clusters, possibly via an interaction with utrophin.

Dystrophin, the protein product of the Duchenne muscular dystrophy locus, is a protein of the membrane cytoskeleton that associates with a complex of integral and membrane-associated proteins. Of these, the 58-kD intracellular membrane-associated protein, syntrophin, was recently shown to consist of a family of three related but distinct genes. We expressed the cDNA of human beta 1-syntrophin and the COOH terminus of human dystrophin in reticulocyte lysates using an in vitro transcription/translation system. Using antibodies to dystrophin we immunoprecipitated these two interacting proteins in a variety of salt and detergent conditions. We demonstrate that the 53 amino acids encoded on exon 74 of dystrophin, an alternatively spliced exon, are necessary and sufficient for interaction with translated beta 1-syntrophin in our assay. On the basis of its alternative splicing, dystrophin may thus be present in two functionally distinct populations. In this recombinant expression system, the dystrophin relatives, human dystrophin related protein (DRP or utrophin) and the 87K postsynaptic protein from Torpedo electric organ, also bind to translated beta 1-syntrophin. We have found a COOH-terminal 37-kD fragment of beta 1-syntrophin sufficient to interact with translated dystrophin and its homologues, suggesting that the dystrophin binding site on beta 1-syntrophin occurs on a region that is conserved among the three syntrophin homologues.