Association of beta-cytoplasmic actin with high concentrations of acetylcholine receptor (AChR) in normal and anti-AChR-treated primary rat muscle cultures.

Previous immunocytochemical studies in which an antibody specific for mammalian cytoplasmic actin was used showed that a high concentration of cytoplasmic actin exists at neuromuscular junctions of rat muscle fibers such that the distribution of actin corresponded exactly to that of the acetylcholine receptors. Although clusters of acetylcholine receptors also are present in noninnervated rat and chick muscle cells grown in vitro, neither the mechanism for the formation and maintenance of these clusters nor the relationship of these clusters to the high density of acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junction in vivo are known. In the present study, a relationship between beta-cytoplasmic actin and acetylcholine receptors in vitro has been demonstrated immunocytochemically using an antibody specific for the beta-form of cytoplasmic actin. Networks of cytoplasmic actin-containing filaments were found in discrete regions of the myotube membrane that also contained high concentrations of acetylcholine receptors; such high concentrations of acetylcholine receptors have been described in regions of membrane-substrate contact. Moreover, when primary rat myotubes were exposed to human myasthenic serum, gross morphological changes, accompanied by an apparent rearrangement of the cytoplasmic actin-containing cytoskeleton, were produced. Although whether the distribution of cytoplasmic actin-containing structures was influenced by the organization of acetylcholine receptor or vice versa cannot be determined from these studies, these findings suggest that in primary rat muscle cells grown in vitro, acetylcholine receptors and beta-cytoplasmic actin-containing structures may be somehow connected.