Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Living organisms move. The most spectacular examples are muscles that have a striped appearance under the microscope. We rely on them daily for blood circulation, posture, speed is an outcome of different types of muscle - fast, slow and cardiac - that deploy isoforms of the myofilament proteins to contract and relax. Protein isoforms are like cousins; they bear a family resemblance but have distinguishing features (eg slightly different amino acid sequences). How tropomyosin contributes to muscle diversity has long-been an enigma. The major isoforms of tropomyosin are Tpm1.1 (formerly ) ). They share 39 amino acid substitutions. The 'big' Q. What do they do differently? was answered only recently (Lohmeier-Vogel 50) not yet studied at the protein level.Part (II). Tropomyosin in extreme conditions The problem of cold for a protein is rigidity. During the winter, the N. Atlantic approaches freezing, a drop of > 30 oC compared to the warm-blooded (mammalian) scenario. Yet this is a natural marine habitat. A 'big' Q. is: How does tropomyosin avoid being straitjacketed'? Recent work (Fudge & Heeley 2015) has shown the existence of 3 'flexing' strategies (fewer ion pairs, more glycine & polar residues in core sites) within salmon Tpm1.1. The effect of these 'cold isomorphisms' on salmon Tpm1.1 function - polymerisation, troponin binding & regulation - will be probed by interchange of amino acids with the thermally-stable mammalian homologue. Part (II), as with Part (I), will provide information on tropomyosin's functional landscape (ie binding sites).