Existence of common antigenic sites in tropomyosins.

1. Tropomyosins were extracted from vertebrate and invertebrate muscles, and their immunolo;ical characteristics were compared using antisera against tropomyosins from chicken skeletal and cardiac muscles. 2. Antigenic sites common to those of chicken skeletal muscle tropomyosin were found in all the tropomyosins tested, although the reactions of these common antigenic sites in an immunodiffusion test were weak in tropomyosins from phylogenetically distant animals. 3. An immunological difference was found between alpha-tropomyosins from chicken cardiac muscle and rabbit cardiac muscle. Thus they had specific antigenic sites in addition to the common ones. 4. A component was found in a 1 M KCL extract of Tetrahymena pyriformis which reacted with antiserum against chicken skeletal muscle tropomyosin.