Myosin heavy‐chain‐based isomyosins in developing, adult fast‐twitch and slow‐twitch muscles

A modified method of electrophoresis under nondenaturing conditions made it possible to separate rat muscle extracts of defined myosin heavy chain (HC) and light chain (LC) composition into subsets of developmental, fast and slow myosin heavy-chain-based isomyosins. The fastest migrating isomyosins were the neonatal isomyosins (nM1, nM2, nM3), followed by the slightly slower migrating embryonic isomyosins (eM1, eM2, eM3, eM4). Of the nine adult fast isomyosins, the HCIIb-based isomyosins (FM1b, FM2b, FM3b) were the fastest migrating. These were followed by the HCIId-based isomyosins (FM1d, FM2d, FM3d). The HCIIa-based isomyosins (FM1a, FM2a, FM3a) were the slowest. Our results suggest that FM3a is identical with the so-called intermediate isomyosin (IM) described in the literature. The slow myosin heavy-chain-based isomyosins (SM1, SM2, SM3) migrated far behind the fast isomyosins. Whereas the gross electrophoretic mobilities of each of these isomyosin triplets is determined by the specific heavy chain complement, the different mobilities of the bands within each triplet result from different alkali light chain combinations. Thus, the fastest triplet bands of the neonatal (nM1) and adult fast isomyosins (FM1b, FM1d, FM1a) represent the LC3f homodimers, the slowest (nM3, FM3b, FM3d, FM3a) the LC1f homodimers, and the intermediate bands (nM2, FM2b, FM2d, FM2a) the LC1f/LC3f heterodimers. Different proportions of the adult fast isomyosin triplet bands indicate that the affinity for LC3f decreases in the order HCIIb, HCIId, HCIIa. The three slow isomyosins represent LC1sa (SM1) and LC1sb (SM3) homodimers and a LC1sa/LC1sb heterodimer (SM2). Circumstantial evidence suggests an inverse order in rabbit muscle where SM1 and SM3 most likely represent LC1sb and LC1sa homodimers, respectively.