Studying protein isoforms of the adaptor SETA/CIN85/Ruk with monoclonal antibodies

SETA/CIN85/Ruk is a multifunctional adaptor protein involved in signal transduction and attenuation downstream of receptor tyrosine kinases. It has a modular structure, and various isoforms that combine different protein-protein interaction domains have been proposed based on cDNA analysis. As a first step towards understanding SETA/CIN85/Ruk isoforms at the protein level, we have characterized 5 monoclonal antibodies against this protein. Three of these were used to study lysates fractionated on a pH gradient, leading to the identification of various SETA/CIN85/Ruk proteins on the basis of pI and apparent molecular weight. While good correspondence with proteins predicted from cDNA analysis was found for two isoforms, in most cases it was not possible to make an unequivocal assignment. We conclude that additional splice variants remain to be described, and that a deeper understanding of SETA/CIN85/Ruk post-translational processing and modification is necessary to gain further understanding of this complex gene product.