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Using a biochemical/immunological approach to analyse the protein constituents of skeletal-muscle junctional-face membrane (JFM), we identified a 45kDa protein. Its N-terminal amino acid was blocked, but the amino acid sequence obtained from several peptides after proteolytic treatment did not significantly match that of any protein present in the SwissProt and NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) databases. We synthesized a peptide whose sequence matched that of one of the peptides obtained after CNBr cleavage of the 45kDa protein; the peptide was conjugated to a carrier and used to raise antibodies. The antiserum was used to study in more detail the biochemical characteristics of the novel 45kDa protein. Analysis of the proteins present in different subcellular membrane fractions show that the novel 45kDa polypeptide: (i) is an integral membrane constituent present both in neonatal and adult skeletal-muscle sarcoplasmic reticulum; (ii) is selectively localized in the JFM; (iii) is not present in microsomes obtained from rabbit heart, liver or kidney. Immunoprecitation with anti-(45kDa protein) antibody indicates that the 45kDa protein is part of a complex which can be phosphorylated in vitro by the catalytic subunit of protein kinase A.

DNA analysis to detect mutations which cosegregate with MH as well as biochemical assays on cultured lymphocytes obtained from blood can serve as useful diagnostic tools for MH susceptibility and genotype-phenotype correlations.

We investigated the functional role of JP-45, a recently discovered protein of the junctional face membrane (JFM) of skeletal muscle. For this purpose, we expressed JP-45 C-terminally tagged with the fluorescent protein DsRed2 by nuclear microinjection in myotubes derived from the C2C12 skeletal muscle cell line and performed whole-cell voltage-clamp experiments. We recorded in parallel cell membrane currents and Ca 2+ signals using fura-2 during step depolarization.