Nebulin, a giant protein (molecular mass 800 kDa) specific for the skeletal muscle of vertebrates, has been suggested to be involved in the length regulation of the thin filament as a ‘molecular ruler’. Despite its size, nebulin appears to be composed mainly of small repeats of approximately 35 amino acids. We have characterized in this study the conformational and functional properties of single repeats. Complete repeats were found to bind to F‐actin while a truncated one did not. One repeat is therefore the smallest unit for nebulin‐‐actin interaction. Circular dichroism and nuclear magnetic resonance spectra measured for the peptides in water indicated a transient helical conformation. The folded region is located for them all around the conserved sequence SDxxYK. The helical conformation is strongly stabilized by anionic detergents and trifluoroethanol while uncharged or positively charged detergents have no effect. Since the surface of the actin filament is known to contain clusters of negative charges, anionic detergents may mimic the effect of an actin environment. 3D structures were calculated for three representative peptides in SDS. In vivo, the nebulin helices should form a complex with the actin filament. Based on the assumed importance of charge interactions between nebulin and actin, we propose a model for the structure of the F‐actin‐nebulin complex in vivo. According to that, two nebulin molecules occupy symmetrical positions along the central cleft of the actin filament bridging the two strands of the actin two‐start helix. The consistency of this model with experimental data is discussed.

Smooth muscle calponin bound to the biologically active fluorescent calmodulin [2-(4'-maleimidoanilino)naphthalene-6-sulfonic acid-calmodulin] (MIANS.CaM) with a Kd of 80 nM and produced a 3.4-fold fluorescence enhancement. PKC-phosphorylated calponin (1.3 mol of Pi/mol) bound to CaM with approximately 15-fold lower affinity. Calponin inhibited CaM (10 nM) activation of the Ca(2+)-/CaM-activated cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase (PDE) with an IC50 of 138 nM. The calponin-CaM interaction was Ca(2+)-dependent: half-maximal binding of calponin to MIANS.CaM occurred at pCa 6.6 with a Hill coefficient of 2.4. Stopped-flow fluorescence kinetic analysis demonstrated that EGTA chelation of Ca2+ from CaM disrupted the MIANS.CaM-calponin complex at a rate of 1 s-1. Calponin bound MIANS.CaM at a rate of (6.0 +/- 1.8) x 10(6) M-1s-1, and melittin and unlabeled brain CaM both disrupted the MIANS.CaM-calponin complex at a rate of 0.3 +/- 0.1 s-1. These studies suggest that calponin binds CaM with 80-fold lower affinity than myosin light-chain kinase and that calponin associates with CaM much slower than it associates with caldesmon or myosin light-chain kinase. The physiological relevance of the CaM-calponin interaction was evaluated by analysis of the effects of Ca(2+)-CaM on (i) the interaction of calponin with actin and (ii) calponin-mediated inhibition of actin-activated myosin MgATPase activity. Ca(2+)-CaM half-maximally inhibited calponin (2 microM) binding to smooth and skeletal muscle actins (9 microM) at 5.4 and 11 microM CaM, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)