Expression of four myosin heavy chain isoforms with development in mouse uterus.

In smooth muscle tissue, two or three isoforms of myosin heavy chain (MHC) have been reported (SM1, SM2, and/or NM). In mouse uterus tissue, four bands in the region of the MHC's can be resolved on high resolution SDS polyacrylamide gels. Western blots using smooth muscle (SM) MHC-specific and nonmuscle (NM) MHC-specific polyclonal antibodies show the upper two bands in the MHC region are SM isoforms, whereas the lower two bands are NM isoforms. One-dimensional peptide maps of these four bands show each to have a unique pattern of polypeptide fragments following alpha-chymotrypsin digestion. Developmental expression of myosin heavy chains (MHC) in mouse uterus, aorta, bladder, and stomach (6 ages, 10-150 days) was determined using tissue homogenates. In the uterus, both SM MHC's show an increase in relative content with increasing age, whereas the NM MHC's show a decrease. The mouse aorta shows a significant increase in the SM MHC's and a significant decrease in the NM MHC from day 10 to day 30, which is similar to data reported for the rat aorta. Whereas both the bladder and stomach contain relatively small amounts of NM MHC's (approximately 10% or less), these quantities do show decreases with development. The SM1:SM2 ratio for the uterus remains high (3.4 at 150 days) through development; the aorta, bladder, and stomach also start out high, but tend toward 1.0 in the 150-day animals. The presence of four MHC isoforms in the uterus with unique developmental regulation of expression is consistent with hypotheses of unique functional roles for these isoforms.