“…1 Membrane fractions were prepared by layering ventricular extracts onto a linear 5% to 20% sucrose density gradient and subjecting them to ultracentrifugation, fractionation, and concentration as described previously. 27 Immunodetection of ␣-catenin (Sigma-Aldrich, Inc, St Louis, Mo), ␣-T catenin (kind gift from Dr Frans van Roy, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium), -catenin (Affiniti Research Products Ltd, Plymouth Meeting, Pa), vinculin (Sigma-Aldrich), dystrophin, 27 pan-cadherin (SigmaAldrich), desmoplakin (Serotec, Raleigh, NC), plakoglobin (Transduction Laboratories, BD Biosciences, San Jose, Calif), connexin 43 (Chemicon, Temecula, Calif), and all actin (Sigma-Aldrich), was performed as described previously. 1,28 …”