Studies on muscle differentiation. II. Antigenicity of tropomyosin from frog skeletal muscles.

Abstract

A tropomyosin preparation isolated from leg muscles of the frog, Rana nigromaculata, according to BAILEY's method with a minor modification elicited a production in rabbits of antibodies against the preparation. These antibodies included two major antibodies reacting with the authentic tropomyosin and minor antibodies whose counter-part antigens could not definitely be related to the authentic tropomyosin molecule. One of the major antibodies was revealed to be genus- and organ-specific, and the other to be genus- and organ-nonspecific. The latter antibody reacted with skeletal muscle extracts from vertebrate animals of all the classes and also with cardiac muscle extracts from various vertebrate animals. Anti-frog tropomyosin antisera containing the genus- and organ-non-specific antibody reacted with cardiac muscle extracts from various vertebrates in Ouchterlony's agar diffusion test by forming only a single precipitation band which could be identified to be due to the reaction between the genus- and organ-nonspecific anti-tropomyosin antibody and the authentic tropomyosin. Similarly, they also reacted with skeletal muscle extracts from rabbit by forming the single precipitation band. These facts suggested a possibility for the anti-frog tropomyosin antisera to be used for an immunochemical detection of tropomyosin in muscles from selected materials.