Investigating the role of Ca2+-binding site IV in barnacle troponin C

Invertebrate muscles: thin and thick filament structure; molecular basis of contraction and its regulation, catch and asynchronous muscle

This is the second in a series of canonical reviews on invertebrate muscle. We cover here thin and thick filament structure, the molecular basis of force generation and its regulation, and two special properties of some invertebrate muscle, catch and asynchronous muscle. Invertebrate thin filaments resemble vertebrate thin filaments, although helix structure and tropomyosin arrangement show small differences. Invertebrate thick filaments, alternatively, are very different from vertebrate striated thick filaments and show great variation within invertebrates. Part of this diversity stems from variation in paramyosin content, which is greatly increased in very large diameter invertebrate thick filaments. Other of it arises from relatively small changes in filament backbone structure, which results in filaments with grossly similar myosin head placements (rotating crowns of heads every 14.5 nm) but large changes in detail (distances between heads in azimuthal registration varying from three to thousands of crowns). The lever arm basis of force generation is common to both vertebrates and invertebrates, and in some invertebrates this process is understood on the near atomic level. Invertebrate actomyosin is both thin (tropomyosin:troponin) and thick (primarily via direct Ca(++) binding to myosin) filament regulated, and most invertebrate muscles are dually regulated. These mechanisms are well understood on the molecular level, but the behavioral utility of dual regulation is less so. The phosphorylation state of the thick filament associated giant protein, twitchin, has been recently shown to be the molecular basis of catch. The molecular basis of the stretch activation underlying asynchronous muscle activity, however, remains unresolved.

Differential effects of arginine, glutamate and phosphoarginine on Ca(2+)-activation properties of muscle fibres from crayfish and rat

The effects of two amino acids, arginine which has a positively charged side-chain and glutamate which has a negatively charged side-chain on the Ca2+-activation properties of the contractile apparatus were examined in four structurally and functionally different types of skeletal muscle; long- and short-sarcomere fibres from the claw muscle of the yabby (a freshwater decapod crustacean), and fast- and slow-twitch fibres from limb muscles of the rat. Single skinned fibres were activated in carefully balanced solutions of different pCa (-log10[Ca2+]) that either contained the test solute ("test") or not ("control"). The effect of phosphoarginine, a phosphagen that bears a nett negative charge, was also compared to the effects of arginine. Results show that (i) arginine (33-36 mmol l(-1)) significantly shifted the force-pCa curve by 0.08-0.13 pCa units in the direction of increased sensitivity to Ca2+-activated contraction in all fibre types; (ii) phosphoarginine (9-10 mmol l(-1)) induced a significant shift of the force-pCa curve by 0.18-0.24 pCa units in the direction of increased sensitivity to Ca2+ in mammalian fast- and slow-twitch fibres, but had no significant effects on the force-pCa relation in either long- or short-sarcomere crustacean fibres; (iii) glutamate (36-40 mmol l(-1)), like arginine affected the force-pCa relation of all fibre types investigated, but in the opposite direction, causing a significant decrease in the sensitivity to Ca2+-activated contraction by 0.08-0.19 pCa units; (iv) arginine, phosphoarginine and glutamate had little or no effect on the maximum Ca2+-activated force of crustacean and mammalian fibres. The results suggest that the opposing effects of glutamate and arginine are not related to simply their charge structure, but must involve complex interactions between these molecules, Ca2+ and the regulatory and other myofibrillar proteins.

Troponin C in different insect muscle types: identification of two isoforms in Lethocerus, Drosophila and Anopheles that are specific to asynchronous flight muscle in the adult insect

The indirect flight muscles (IFMs) of Lethocerus (giant water bug) and Drosophila (fruitfly) are asynchronous: oscillatory contractions are produced by periodic stretches in the presence of a Ca(2+) concentration that does not fully activate the muscle. The troponin complex on thin filaments regulates contraction in striated muscle. The complex in IFM has subunits that are specific to this muscle type, and stretch activation may act through troponin. Lethocerus and Drosophila have an unusual isoform of the Ca(2+)-binding subunit of troponin, troponin C (TnC), with a single Ca(2+)-binding site near the C-terminus (domain IV); this isoform is only in IFMs, together with a minor isoform with an additional Ca(2+)-binding site in the N-terminal region (domain II). Lethocerus has another TnC isoform in leg muscle which also has two Ca(2+)-binding sites. Ca(2+) binds more strongly to domain IV than to domain II in two-site isoforms. There are four isoforms in Drosophila and Anopheles (malarial mosquito), three of which are also in adult Lethocerus. A larval isoform has not been identified in Lethocerus. Different TnC isoforms are expressed in the embryonic, larval, pupal and adult stages of Drosophila; the expression of the two IFM isoforms is increased in the pupal stage. Immunoelectron microscopy shows the distribution of the major IFM isoform with one Ca(2+)-binding site is uniform along Lethocerus thin filaments. We suggest that initial activation of IFM is by Ca(2+) binding to troponin with the two-site TnC, and full activation is through the action of stretch on the complex with the one-site isoform.