ISSN:
0886-1544
Keywords:
monoclonal antibodies to tubulin
;
radioimmune assay
;
immunoautoradiography
;
Western blots
;
immunofluorescence
;
tubulin heterogeneity
;
eukaryotic flagellar motility
;
immunomotility
;
Life and Medical Sciences
;
Cell & Developmental Biology
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
Notes:
Two monoclonal antibodies reactive for α-tubulin but not for β-tubulin have been prepared, characterized in terms of their relative binding to tubulins from differnt sources by a solid-phase binding assay, immunoautoradiography, and indirect immunofluorescence, and utilized to study flagellar motility. Our results demonstrate that α-tubulins from different species, and even from different tissues of the same species, are nonidentical. Especially interesting was the observation that one of the antibodies, Ab2, immunofluorescently stained microtubules of chick embryo fibroblast cells, but was completely unreactive for microtubules of rat kangaroo (PtK2) fibroblasts; a different antibody, Ab1, stained both cell types. Results of these and additional experiments clearly show that Ab1 and Ab2 recognize discrete and different epitopes on α-tubulin.Monoclonal antitubulins Ab1 and Ab2 each inhibited the bend amplitude of reactivated sea urchin spermatozoa without affecting beat frequencies or the ability of the outer doublet microtubules to slide past each other in elastase-digested models. These results, together with those obtained previously using rabbit polyclonal antitubulin antibodies [Asai and Brokaw, 1980], demonstrate that inhibition of bend amplitude is a common property of antitubulin antibodies and is not due to the binding of antibodies to one specific site on the axoneme. Our results suggest that tubulin subunit conformational changes may occur on the outer doublet lattice and may be integrally involved in the mechanism and control of flagellar bending.
Additional Material:
5 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cm.970020608
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