Abstact

BACKGROUND Titin is a gigantic protein located in the thick filament of vertebrate muscles. The putative functions of titin range from interactions with myosin and other muscle proteins to a role in muscle recoil. Analysis of its complete sequence has shown that titin is a multi-domain protein containing several copies of modules of 100 amino acids each. These are thought to belong to the fibronectin type-III and immunoglobulin superfamilies. So far, a complete structural determination has not been carried out on any of the titin modules. RESULTS The three-dimensional structure of an immunoglobulin module, located in the M-line of the sarcomere close to the titin C terminus and called 'M5', was determined by multi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy. The structure has the predicted immunoglobulin fold with two beta-sheets packed against each other. Each sheet contains four strands. The structure of M5 belongs to the I (intermediate) set of the immunoglobulin superfamily and is very similar to telokin, which is also found in muscles. Although M5 and telokin have relatively little sequence similarity, the two proteins clearly share the same hydrophobic core. The major difference between telokin and the titin M5 module is the absence of the C' strand in the latter. CONCLUSIONS The titin domains and several of the immunoglobulin-like domains from other modular muscle proteins are highly conserved at the positions corresponding to the hydrophobic core of M5. Our results indicate that it may be possible to use the structure of M5 as a molecular template to model most of the other immunoglobulin-like domains in muscle titin.