The expression of multiple forms of troponin T in chicken-fast-skeletal muscle may result from differential splicing of a single gene.

Troponin T isolated from chicken fast skeletal muscle has been shown to be present in three different molecular forms, one in breast and two in leg muscle. The three forms differ in both size and charge. Troponin T from breast muscle has a molecular mass of 33.5 kDa and a pI of about 7. Of the two leg muscle forms the larger has a molecular mass of 30.5 kDa and a pI of about 8.5 and the smaller a molecular mass of 29.8 kDa and a pI of about 10. Considerably more heterogeneity has been found in the leg than in the breast muscle proteins although this is not reflected in their N-terminal sequences. The reason for this is not clear. Troponin T from breast or leg muscle can be phosphorylated with troponin T kinase at the single serine residue at the N-terminus. No difference in the rate or extent of phosphorylation could be found between proteins from breast or leg muscle. The three proteins have been shown to differ only in the amino acid sequence of their N-terminal tryptic peptides. These peptides are of different length, that from breast troponin T being 58 residues and those from leg troponin T being 36 and 42 residues, these differences account for the difference in molecular mass of the parent proteins. Despite this difference the sequence of the first 12 and last 14 residues is identical in all three N-terminal peptides. The remainder of the sequence of the smallest peptide is also repeated in the other two but they each contain an extra piece of unique sequence. On the basis of these sequences it is proposed that chicken troponin T is coded for by a single gene containing, at the 5' end, a number of small exons and that three different mRNA molecules may be produced by alternative pathways of RNA splicing. The possible significance of these N-terminal sequence variations is discussed.