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Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules pp 1–11Cite as

Actinin Family

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 83 Accesses

Synonyms

ACTN; ACTN1; ACTN2; ACTN3; ACTN4; α-Actinin

Historical Background

Alpha-actinin was first identified in 1964 by Setsuro and Fumiko Ebashi in a biochemical fraction from muscle that promoted actomyosin contraction (Ebashi et al. 1964). However, it was experiments that they performed with Koscak Maruyama that defined what is now regarded as the primary function of alpha-actinin, namely, the cross-linking of actin filaments. This cross-linking ability was observed in vitro as the formation of gels when alpha-actinin was mixed with F-actin, while bundling of actin filaments was observed by electron microscopy. The name alpha-actinin was Maruyama’s suggestion, with another factor that he had identified and characterized being designated beta-actinin. Beta-actinin is unrelated to alpha-actinin and is now almost exclusively called Cap Z, or capping protein, reflecting its function in the Z-disk of the muscle sarcomere where it caps the barbed (+) end of actin filaments. Thus the...

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Abbreviations

ABD:

Actin-binding domain

CAM:

Calmodulin like

CH:

Calponin homology

CMTP:

Congenital macrothrombocytopenia

CNS:

Central nervous system

DCM:

Dilated cardiomyopathy

FSGS:

Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis

HCM:

Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy

LDB3:

LIM domain-binding protein 3

RIL:

Reversion-induced LIM protein

SLR:

Spectrin-like repeats

ZASP:

Z-band alternatively spliced PDZ-motif protein

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    Paul W. Young & Amarendra Praburam Ajaykumar

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  1. Paul W. Young
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  2. Amarendra Praburam Ajaykumar
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Correspondence to Paul W. Young .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biological Science, Department of Molecular Science and Tech College of Natural Science, Suwon, Korea (Republic of)

    Sangdun Choi

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Young, P.W., Ajaykumar, A.P. (2016). Actinin Family. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_101924-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_101924-1

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