The work reported below is an extension of these early observations using a different approach. We have found that it is possible to completely crosslink reduced tropomyosin by reaction with 5,5'-dithiobis(2-nitrobenzoate) (NbS)2. This aromatic disulfide causes the formation of S-S bonds between the corresponding cysteines of the two parallel chains within the same molecule by a two-step disulfide exchange process. Since this process requires the close proximity of two SH groups, these studies provide strong evidence for the model in which the chains are in register. In addition, from our consistent observations that only two crosslinked dimer chain species of approximately equal concentration are formed, it appears that the tropomyosin molecule is composed of only aa and a/3 chains.Tropomyosin is a rod-shaped molecule of 68,000 daltons whose subunits are made up of two parallel a-helical polypeptide chains of about equal molecular weight (1). It is one of the components of the thin filaments of skeletal muscle, and is involved in the regulation of muscle contraction (1). Recently, considerable progress has been made in characterizing the two subunits (2) and in analyzing the amino-acid sequence (3-5), and it is clear that rabbit skeletal tropomyosin consists of two kinds of chains, a and fl, which differ slightly in amino-acid composition and sequence (2-5). The a chain, which has one cysteine, is present in about a 3-fold excess over the ,3 chain, which contains two cysteines (2). Although the precise arrangement of chains is not known, there is some evidence to suggest that tropomyosin is not composed of a random mixture of a and /3 chains (6). Sodek et al. proposed a model for the interacting chains based on the observation that hydrophobic sidechains are predominantly located in two series which repeat every seventh residue in the sequence (7). This appears to allow maximum hydrophobic interaction along a line between the two a-helical chains when they are in register or when one chain is translated 7, 14, 21, ... residues with respect to the other. Although this model showed favorable contacts when the two chains were in register, the 14-residue staggered model was preferred because it appeared to optimize hydrophobic interactions and account for end-to-end aggregation.Evidence has accumulated over the years that unless care is taken to prevent heavy metal ion contamination, the SH groups of tropomyosin are readily oxidized to S-S (8-10).
MATERIALS AND METHODSPreparation of Reduced Tropomyosin. Tropomyosin was prepared by the method of Bailey (11) as modified by Greaser and Gergely (12). Tropomyosin at about 5 mg/ml was dissolved in buffer (0.05 M Na phosphate, 0.01 M Na acetate, 1.0 M NaCl, 1 mM EDTA) at pH 7.5, containing 20 mM dithiothreitol, filtered through a Millipore HAWP 0.45 ,um filter, and warmed to 450 for 1 hr. After cooling, the pH was immediately reduced to 4.6 by addition of a few drops of HC1, and the isoelectric precipitate was collected by centrifugation for 15 min at 15,000 rpm. After di...