Role of neck region in the thermal aggregation of myosin.

Carp dorsal myosin formed oligomers that retained ATPase activity upon heating. Cleavage of the oligomeric myosin at subfragment-1 (S-1)/rod junction released monomeric S-1 and rod, indicating that ATPase retaining myosin associated near the S-1/rod junction. The digest also contained rod oligomers. Heating a mixture of S-1 and rod generated neither ATPase retaining S-1 oligomers nor rod oligomers. Electron microscopic observation of the heated myosin revealed that some oligomers were formed by associating at the S-1/rod joining region, exhibiting a recognized double head, probably ATPase retaining oligomers. No myosin oligomers associated at the tail region were observed, thus, rod aggregation would be formed at its very restricted region near the S-1/rod junction. Based on the findings, we proposed that the neck structure is important in the thermal oligomerization process of myosin.