Dystrophin constitutes 5% of membrane cytoskeleton in skeletal muscle

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Abstract
Dystrophin, which is absent in skeletal muscle of Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients, has not been considered to play a major structural role in the cell membrane of skeletal muscle because of its low abundance (∼ 0.002% of total muscle protein). Here, were have determined the relative abundance of dystrophin in a membrane cytoskeleton preparation and found that dystrophin constitutes approximately 5% of the total membrane cytoskeleton fraction of skeletal muscle sarcolemma. In addition, dystrophin can be removed from surcolemma by alkaline treatment. Thus, our results have demonstrated that dystrophin is a major component of the subsurcolemmal cytoskeleton in skeletal muscle and suggest that dystrophin could play a major structural role in the cell membrane of skeletal muscle.