Using iPALM to determine protein organisation in cardiac muscle Z-discs

Sarcomeres, the basic repeating unit of striated muscle, are joined together by crosslinked actin filaments found at the boundaries of muscle sarcomeres, termed Z-discs. Z-discs play a key role in cardiac signalling and disease, however, the arrangement and function of many of the proteins present in the Z-disc remain to be understood. Here, we determined the organisation of 3 key proteins, ZASP, ɑ-actinin-2 and the Z1Z2 epitope of titin, located within the Z-disc. We fluorescently labelled these proteins in cardiac myofibrils using Adhirons specific to each protein and used interferometric photoactivated localization microscopy (iPALM) to obtain the 3D position of these proteins to a high precision (<10nm in x,y,z). We then used PERPL (Pattern Extraction from Relative Positions of Localisations: available at https://github.com/oubino/z_disk/releases/tag/v0.0.3) to analyse patterns in the relative positions of the proteins and reveal their underlying organisation. This analysis revealed that ZASP and ɑ-actinin-2 have a similar repeating organisation, but that the organisation of Z1Z2 is different.