Thin-filament preparations from four smooth muscle types (gizzard, stomach, trachea, aorta) all activate myosin MgATPase activity, are regulated by Ca2+, and contain actin, tropomyosin and a 120000-140000-Mr protein in the molar proportions 1:1/7:1/26. The 120000-140000-Mr protein from all sources is a potent inhibitor of actomyosin ATPase activity. Peptide-mapping and immunological evidence is presented showing that it is identical with caldesmon. Quantitative immunological data suggest that caldesmon is a component of all the thin filaments and that the thin-filament-bound caldesmon accounts for all the caldesmon in intact tissue. The myosin light-chain kinase content of thin-filament preparations was found to be negligible. We propose that caldesmon-based thin-filament Ca2+ regulation is a physiological mechanism in all smooth muscles.
Dynamin is a 96 kDa protein that has multiple oligomerization states that influence its GTPase activity. A number of different dynamin effectors, including lipids, actin filaments, and SH3-domain containing proteins, have been implicated in the regulation of dynamin oligomerization, though their roles in influencing dynamin oligomerization have been studied predominantly in vitro using recombinant proteins. Here, we identify higher order dynamin oligomers such as rings and helices in vitro and in live cells using fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM). FLIM detected GTP- and actin-dependent dynamin oligomerization at distinct cellular sites, including the cell membrane and transition zones where cortical actin transitions into stress fibers. Our study identifies a major role for direct dynamin-actin interactions and dynamin’s GTPase activity in the regulation of dynamin oligomerization in cells.
Molecular dynamics simulations of smooth and striated muscle myosin regulatory light chain (RLC) N-terminal extension (NTE) showed that diphosphorylation induces a disorder-to-order transition. Our goal here was to further explore the effects of mono- and diphosphorylation on the straightening and rigidification of the tarantula myosin RLC NTE. For that we used MD simulations followed by persistence length analysis to explore the consequences of secondary and tertiary structure changes occurring on RLC NTE following phosphorylation. Static and dynamic persistence lengths analysis of tarantula RLC NTE peptides suggest that diphosphorylation produces an important 24-fold straightening and a 16-fold rigidification of the RLC NTE, while monophosphorylation has a less profound effect. This new information on myosin structural mechanics, not fully revealed by previous EM and MD studies, add support to a cooperative phosphorylation-dependent activation mechanism as proposed for the tarantula thick filament. Our results suggest that the RLC NTE straightening and rigidification after Ser45 phosphorylation leads to a release of the constitutively Ser35 monophosphorylated free head swaying away from the thick filament shaft in the relaxed state. This is so because the stiffened diphosphorylated RLC NTE would hinder the docking back of the free head after swaying away, becoming released and mobile and unable to recover its original interacting position on activation.
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