Sumoylated α-skeletal muscle actin in the skeletal muscle of adult rats

Skeletal muscles are composed of two major muscle fiber types: slow-twitch oxidative fibers and fast-twitch glycolytic fibers. The proteins in these muscle fibers are known to differ in their expression, relative abundance, and post-translational modifications. In this study, we report a previously unreported post-translational modification of alpha-skeletal muscle actin in the skeletal muscles of adult male F344 rats in vivo. Using two-dimensional electrophoresis (2D-PAGE), we first examined the differences in the protein expression profiles between the soleus and plantaris muscles. We found higher intensity protein spots at approximately 60 kDa and pH 9 on 2D-PAGE for the soleus muscle compared with the plantaris muscle. These spots were identified as alpha-skeletal muscle actin by liquid chromatography-nanoelectrospray ionization-tandem mass spectrometry and western blot analyses. In addition, we found that the 60 kDa alpha-skeletal muscle actin is modified by small ubiquitin-like modifier (SUMO) 1, using 2D-PAGE and western blot analyses. Furthermore, we found that alpha-skeletal muscle actin with larger molecular weight was localized in the nuclear and cytosol of the skeletal muscle, but not in the myofibrillar fraction by the combination of subcellular fractionation and western blot analyses. These results suggest that alpha-skeletal muscle actin is modified by SUMO-1 in the skeletal muscles, localized in nuclear and cytosolic fractions, and the extent of this modification is much higher in the slow muscles than in the fast muscles. This is the first study to show the presence of SUMOylated actin in animal tissues.