Monoclonal antibody evidence for structural similarities between the central rod regions of actinin and dystrophin.

A monoclonal antibody, MANDYS141, binds to both dystrophin and actinin on Western blots (SDS-denatured), but only to actinin in frozen sections of human muscle (native conformation). It differs from a polyclonal cross-reacting antiserum in that it binds to several muscle isoforms of actinin (smooth, fast and slow) from man, mouse and chicken and recognises a quite different part of the proposed triple-helical region of dystrophin (amino acids 1750-2248). The results suggest that structural homologies between actinin and dystrophin occur more than once in their central helical regions and provide experimental support for an actinin-like central rod model for dystrophin.