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Published January 1982 | Published
Journal Article Open

Comparative Analysis of the Major Polypeptides from Liver Gap Junctions and Lens Fiber Junctions

Abstract

Gap junctions from rat liver and fiber junctions from bovine lens have similar septilaminar profiles when examined by thin-section electron microscopy and differ only slightly with respect to the packing of intramembrane particles in freeze-fracture images. These similarities have often led to lens fiber junctions being referred to as gap junctions. Junctions from both sources were isolated as enriched subcellular fractions and their major polypeptide components compared biochemically and immunochemically. The major liver gap junction polypeptide has an apparent molecular weight of 27,000, while a 25,000-dalton polypeptide is the major component of lens fiber junctions. The two polypeptides are not homologous when compared by partial peptide mapping in SDS. In addition, there is not detectable antigenic similarity between the two polypeptides by immunochemical criteria using antibodies to the 25,000-dalton lens fiber junction polypeptide. Thus, in spite of the ultrastructural similarities, the gap junction and the lens fiber junction are comprised of distinctly different polypeptides, suggesting that the lens fiber junction contains a unique gene product and potentially different physiological properties.

Additional Information

© 1982 Rockefeller University Press. Beginning six months after publication, RUP grants the public the non-exclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the Work under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ and http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode. Received for publication 27 May 1981, and in revised form 27 August 1981. We would like to thank Annie Lai and Eleanor Morales for their valuable laboratory assistance, Louise Kloesman for photography, Suzanne Kuffier and Betty Alfenito for graphics, and Madeleine Naylor for secretarial assistance. This work was supported by grants HL 16507 and GM 24753 from the National Institutes of Health. E. L. Hertzberg was the recipient of a Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Fellowship, M. Freidlander a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship, and N. B. Gilula a National Institutes of Health Career Development Award.

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Created:
August 19, 2023
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October 18, 2023