• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.231-240
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• 2003

Deciphering the molecular interactions of proteins forming Z-lines is pivotal for understanding the regulation of myofibril assembly, sarcomeric organization, and mechanical properties of striated muscle. The purpose of this study is to searched for potential novel ligands of the Z-line portion of nebulin. In this study interacting proteins with intra-Z-line region of nebulin were screened using a yeast two-hybrid approach. The interaction was conformed by GST pull-down assay. We identified 269 residues within villin/gelsolin homology domain of supervillin that intreacts with the serine rich region of nebulin. The specific interactions of nebulin and supervillin were confirmed in vitro by GST pull-down experiments. Our data suggest that supervillin attaches directly to the Z-line through its interaction with the serine rich domain of nebulin in skeletal muscles. This interaction may link myofibrillar Z-discs to the membrane-associated complexes, costameres.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.303-310
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• 2006

Ankyrins are a ubiquitously expressed family of intracellular adaptor proteins involved in targeting diverse proteins to specialized membrane domains in both the plasma membrane and the endoplasmic reticulum. We described here that the C-terminal domain of ankyrin-B interact specifically with Z-line portion of titin in yeast two-hybrid analysis, in vitro pull-down assays and localization experiments in COS-7 cells. In this study we provide the first experimental evidence that Z-line portion of titin is necessary for the localization of ankyrin-B and ankyrin-B links between the sarcolemma and the myofibril in costameres.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.207-212
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• 2010

Archivillin, a muscle-specific isoform of supervillin, is a component of the costameric cytoskeleton of muscle cells. The purpose of this study was to determine which protein in the skeletal muscle collaborates with archvillin C-terminus. For this purpose, a yeast two-hybrid screening of human skeletal muscle cDNA library was performed using the C-terminal region of archvillin as bait. This study shows that seven human skeletal muscle proteins, namely, nebulin, xeplin, archvillin, GAPDH, TOX4, PITRM1, and YME1L1 interact with archvillin C-terminus. Especially, xeplin is a newly discovered protein interacts with archvillin C-terminus. These results indicate that archvillin C-terminus acts as a bridge between nebulin and xeplin at costameres. Archvillin C-terminal region interacts with nebulin C-terminal region at Z-discs and interacts with xeplin at the vicinity of sarcolemma. I propose that these interactions may contribute to formation of costameric structure and muscle contraction.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.251-261
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• 2007

A myofiber of skeletal muscle is composed of myofibrils, sarcolemma (plasma membrane), and constameres, which anchor the myofibrils to the sarcolemma. Achvillin is a recently identified F-actin binding muscle protein, co-isolates with dystrophin and caveolin-3 in low-density sarcolemma of striated muscle, and colocalizes with dystrophin at costameres, the specialized adhesion sites in muscle. Archvillin also binds to nebulin and localizes at myofibrillar Z-discs, the lateral boundaries of the sarcomere in muscle. However other roles of archvillin on the dynamics of myofibrillogenesis remain to be defined. The goal of this study is, by using siRNA-mediated gene silencing technique, to investigate the effect of archvillin on the dynamics of myofibrillogenesis in cell culture of a mouse skeletal myogenic cell line (C2C12), where presumptive myoblasts withdraw from the cell cycle, fuse, undergo de novo myofibrillogenesis, and differentiate into mature myotubes. The roles of archvillin in the assembly and maintenance of myofibril and during the progression of myofibrillogenesis induced in skeletal myoblast following gene silencing in the cell culture were investigated. Fluorescence microscopy demonstrated that the distribution of archvillin was changed along the course of myofibril assembly with nebulin, vinculin and F-actin and then located at Z-lines with nebulin. Fluorescence microscopy demonstrated that knockdown of mouse archvillin expression led to an impaired assembly of new myofibrillar clusters and delayed fusion and myofibrillogenesis although the mouse archvillin siRNA did not affect those expressions of archvillin binding proteins, such as nebulin and F-actin. This result is corresponded with that of RT-PCR and western blots. When the perturbed archvillin was rescued by co-transfection with GFP or Red tagged human archvillin construct, the inhibited cell fusion and myotube formation was recovered. By using siRNA technique, archvillin was found to be involved in early stage of myofibrillogenesis. Therefore, the current data suggest the idea that archvillin plays critical roles on cell fusion and dynamic myofibril assembly.

• Biomedical Science Letters
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.73-79
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• 2006

Nebulin is a giant ($600{\sim}900$ kDa), modular sarcomeric protein proposed to regulate the assembly, and to specify the precise lengths of actin filamints in vertebrate skeletal muscles. Recently, There is an evidence that the nebulin also expressed in non muscle tissue, brain and liver. We identified a new isoform of nebulin from adult brain library by PCR screening. It contains two simple-repeats exon 165, 166 and linker-repeats exon $154{\sim}161$ except exon 159. The nebulin modules M160 to M170 (exon 150 to exon 161) has been shown to bind desmin. In mature striated muscle, desmin intermediate filaments surround Z-discs and link individual myofibrils laterally at their Z-discs and to other intracellular structures, including the costameres and the intercalated discs of the sarcolemma, sarcoplasmic reticulum, mitochondria, T-tubules, and nuclei. Therefore, it is an interesting possibility that the differential splice pathways within the linker region of nebulin modify the affinity of nebulin's interaction with desmin. The specific interactions of nebulin and desmin were confirmed in vivo by yeast two hybrid experiments. To verify in the cellular level the interaction between nebulin isoform and desmin, we transfected COS-7 cell with EGFP-tagged nebulin and DsRed-tagged desmin. Based on evidence showing that despite exon 159 was deleted, the new isoform of nebulin was interact with desmin. This suggest that nebulin in brain may interact with another intermediate filament. The conservation of these ligand-binding capacity in brain and skeletal nebulins suggest that nebulins may have conserved roles in brain and skeletal muscle.