130K PROTEIN FROM CHICKEN GIZZARD - ITS LOCALIZATION AT THE TERMINI OF MICROFILAMENT BUNDLES IN CULTURED CHICKEN-CELLS

A protein with a molecular weight of 130,000 (130K protein) was extracted from chicken gizzard and purified to homogeneity by ammonium sulfate fractionation and ion-exchange chromatography. Antibodies prepared against the pure protein were used for its immunochemical characterization and immunofluorescent visualization in cultured chicken cells. Both peptide mapping and immunochemical analysis indicated that the 130K protein is not related either structurally or antigenically to other mechanochemical proteins, including α-actinin, actin, myosin, tropomyosin, filamin and tubulin. Immunofluorescent labeling of different cultured embryonic chicken cells (from skin, heart and gizzard) indicated that the label was predominantly organized in intracellular plaques at the bottom of the cells and in some areas of cell-cell contact. Immunoprecipitation of the 130K protein from biosynthetically 35S-methionine-labeled cultured cells, using the pure antibodies and Staphylococcus aureus, resulted in the specific isolation of a single labeled electrophoretic band indistinguishable from the chicken gizzard 130K protein. The 130K protein-rich plaques were found, by interference-reflection microscopy, to coincide with cell substrate adhesion plaques. Double immunofluorescent labeling for the 130K protein and other cytoskeletal proteins (actin, α-actinin and tropomyosin) indicated that the 130K protein-rich areas are localized at the termini of stress fibers. α-Actinin was found in close association with the 130K protein, while tropomyosin was usually excluded from those areas. © 1979.