Pathology Outlines - Actin

Stains
Actin - alpha cardiac

Author: Nat Pernick, M.D. (see Authors page)

Revised: 3 November 2015, last major update September 2013

Copyright: (c) 2003-2015, PathologyOutlines.com, Inc.

PubMed Search: actin[title] alpha cardiac

Table of Contents

Cite this page: Actin - alpha cardiac. PathologyOutlines.com website. http://www.pathologyoutlines.com/topic/stainsactinalphacardiac.html. Accessed July 12th, 2017.

Definition / general

Also called ACTC1
Two types of alpha sarcomeric / striated actin: alpha cardiac type and alpha skeletal muscle type; both are expressed in cardiac and skeletal muscle, but the proportions vary at different developmental periods (J Biol Chem 1994;269:12212) or with disease (Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 2003;17:1467)
Existence of two actin isoforms and their conformational differences may be part of tuning regulatory mechanism, by which the cardiac muscle cells can maintain their biological function under pathological conditions (Biochem Biophys Res Commun 2008;368:696)
Mutations in alpha cardiac actin may cause dilated or hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (J Mol Cell Cardiol 2000;32:1687, J Biol Chem 2006;281:16777); location of mutations correlate with type of functional change (PLoS One 2012;7:e36821)
Mutations may cause familial atrial septal defects (Hum Mol Genet 2008;17:256) due to reduced ACTC1 expression inducing cardiomyocyte apoptosis (Circ J 2010;74:2410)

Diagrams / tables

Cardiac actin mutations related to cardiomyopathies

Microscopic (histologic) images

Images hosted on other servers:

Various images

Positive staining - normal

Myocardium (adult and fetal), skeletal muscle (fetal), skeletal muscle (adult-muscle spindle myocytes) and vascular smooth muscle (occasional)

Positive staining - disease

Skeletal muscle (regenerating skeletal muscle cells, Differentiation 1996;60:245), Duchenne muscular dystrophy, degenerative atrophy (Virchows Arch 2006;449:175), rhabdomyosacoma, Wilm tumor-rhabdomyomatous cells
Extraocular skeletal muscle in skeletal muscle alpha-actin disease (Neuromuscul Disord 2008;18:953)
Occasional smooth muscle tumors

Negative staining

Skeletal muscle (adult, but muscle spindle myocytes are positive)