Amounts Of Protein Species Research Articles

Changes in Sciatic Nerve Protein Composition during Postnatal Development of Mice

Proteins from whole nerve were visualized on a SDS-PAGE system and compared to known proteins enriched in various subcellular tissues during nerve development in mice. Whole nerve samples avoid the a priori assumptions that the immature and mature biophysical characteristics of nerve tissues remain the same during nerve development. Total protein, nerve lengths and wet weights were recorded so that protein recovery and the relative amounts of specific protein species could be quantified. Electrophoretic analysis revealed many rapid alterations in the relative concentration of nerve proteins. Nuclear histones and high molecular weight proteins dominated the electrophoretic patterns of nerves during early development, but diminished rapidly in more mature nerves. The absolute amount of each protein species in a unit length of nerve yields a simplified view of protein alterations in the developing nerve. The importance of such characteristic changes for nerve development are discussed.