Isolation, characterization and immunocytochemical localization of caldesmon-like protein from molluscan striated muscle.

A 140-kDa polypeptide present in the striated muscle of Pecten maximus and Sepia officinalis was purified to homogeneity and its main properties were investigated using biochemical and cytochemical approaches. The protein was found to be similar to chicken gizzard caldesmon. It is a heat-stable protein. It cross-reacts immunologically with anti-(gizzard caldesmon) antibody, binds to calmodulin-Sepharose in a Ca2+-dependent manner, cosediments with F-actin filaments and acts in the absence and presence of tropomyosin as a potent inhibitor of rabbit skeletal actomyosin Mg2+-ATPase. The immunocytochemistry of ultrathin sections revealed, at the light microscopy resolution level, that caldesmon-like protein is present in all types of muscles hitherto examined from invertebrates and vertebrates. However, according to the distribution and the intensity of the fluorescent reaction, we concluded that, under our experimental conditions, caldesmon is not homogeneously distributed and not located in the myofibrillar bands of striated muscles but rather in the sarcoplasmic elements, at the periphery of the fibres.