The assembly of ribbon-shaped structures in low ionic strength extracts obtained from vertebrate smooth muscle

Abstract

In actomyosin extracts from smooth muscle obtained at low ionic strength, an assembly of protein into long ribbon-shaped elements is observed to take place. These ribbons which range up to about 100 nm in width and up to many micrometres in length exhibit a strong repeat period of about 5.6 nm. Optical diffraction analysis shows that they possess a long repeat of 39.1 nm ± 0.4 nm. Tropomyosin purified from vertebrate smooth muscle can be induced to form the same ribbon-shaped elements. On removal of salt from solution the ribbons dissociate into fine filaments of average diameter about 8 nm which show subfilaments of about 2 to 3 nm diameter. In crude preparations the ribbons occur in solution together with myosin. If such preparations are left to stand for several days, ribbons may be found that show a visible 14 nm period which appears to arise from the presence of a regular arrangement of projections. Smooth muscle myosin alone assembles into cylindrical filaments which exhibit a regular arrangement of projections along their entire length, indicating an absence of polarity. These results indicate, as have those recently obtained from section material, that the myosin-containing component of vertebrate smooth muscle contains a protein that forms the core of the filament, which is responsible for its ribbon-like shape and which probably determines the polarity of the attached myosin molecules. It is proposed that this protein is tropomyosin.