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SEROLOGICAL SIMILARITY OF FLAGELLAR AND MITOTIC MICROTUBULES

¹ From the Department of Biology, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 02154; the Pacific Biomedical Research Center, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822; and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543

An antiserum to flagellar axonemes from sperm of Arbacia punctulata contains antibodies which react both with intact flagellar outer fibers and with purified tubulin from the outer fibers. Immunodiffusion tests indicate the presence of similar antigenic determinants on outer-fiber tubulins from sperm flagella of five species of sea urchins and a sand dollar, but not a starfish. The antibodies also react with extracts containing tubulins from different classes of microtubules, including central-pair fibers and both A- and B-subfibers from outer fibers of sperm flagella, an extract from unfertilized eggs, mitotic apparatuses from first cleavage embryos, and cilia from later embryos. Though most tubulins tested share similar antigenic determinants, some clear differences have been detected, even, in Pseudoboletia indiana, between the outer-fiber tubulins of sperm flagella and blastular cilia. Though tubulins are "actin-like" proteins, antitubulin serum does not react with actin from sea urchin lantern muscle. On the basis of these observations, we suggest that various echinoid microtubules are built of similar, but not identical, tubulins.

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This article has been cited by other articles:

• Morgan, J., Rodkey, L., Spooner, B. (1977). Quantitation of cytoplasmic tubulin by radioimmunoassay. Science 197: 578-580 [Abstract]  
• Fuller, G., Brinkley, B., Boughter, J. (1975). Immunofluorescence of mitotic spindles by using monospecific antibody against bovine brain tubulin. Science 187: 948-950 [Abstract]  

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