title: Expression and functional properties of four slow skeletal troponin T isoforms in rat muscles.
abstract: We investigated the expression and functional properties of slow skeletal troponin T (sTnT) isoforms in rat skeletal muscles. Four sTnT cDNAs were cloned from the slow soleus muscle. Three isoforms were found to be similar to sTnT1, sTnT2, and sTnT3 isoforms described in mouse muscles. A new rat isoform, with a molecular weight slightly higher than that of sTnT3, was discovered. This fourth isoform had never been detected previously in any skeletal muscle and was therefore called sTnTx. From both expression pattern and functional measurements, it appears that sTnT isoforms can be separated into two classes, high-molecular-weight (sTnT1, sTnT2) and low-molecular-weight (sTnTx, sTnT3) isoforms. By comparison to the apparent migration pattern of the four recombinant sTnT isoforms, the newly described low-molecular-weight sTnTx isoform appeared predominantly and typically expressed in fast skeletal muscles, whereas the higher-molecular-weight isoforms were more abundant in slow soleus muscle. The relative proportion of the sTnT isoforms in the soleus was not modified after exposure to hindlimb unloading (HU), known to induce a functional atrophy and a slow-to-fast isoform transition of several myofibrillar proteins. Functional data gathered from replacement of endogenous troponin complexes in skinned muscle fibers showed that the sTnT isoforms modified the Ca(2+) activation characteristics of single skeletal muscle fibers, with sTnT2 and sTnT1 conferring a similar increase in Ca(2+) affinity higher than that caused by low-molecular-weight isoforms sTnTx and sTnT3. Thus we show for the first time the presence of sTnT in fast muscle fibers, and our data show that the changes in neuromuscular activity on HU are insufficient to alter the sTnT expression pattern.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire et Génie Génétique, Allée de la Chimie 3, Campus du Sart-Tilman, Bât. B6, 4000 Liège, Belgium. Philippe.Kischel@ulg.ac.be
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kischel
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bastide
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Muller
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dubail
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Offredi
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Mounier
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Martial
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018656:Muscle Fibers, Fast-Twitch / Q000378:metabolism; D018657:Muscle Fibers, Slow-Twitch / Q000378:metabolism; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000378:metabolism*; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D020107:Troponin T / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D020033:Protein Isoforms; D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D020107:Troponin T