Abstract
: Twenty‐one monoclonal antibodies specific for the rat skeletal muscle voltage‐sensitive sodium channel have been characterized according to subunit reactivity, recognition of carbohydrates, and mutual binding interactions. All antibodies recognize the 260‐kDa α‐subunit of the sodium channel on immunoblots. N‐Acetylneuraminic acid inhibited the binding of five antibodies in a concentration‐dependent manner, but five other monosaccharides known to be components of the channel had no effect on antibody binding. Competition studies using biosynthetically labeled antibodies separated these 21 antibodies into groups recognizing at least nine distinct domains. Through common in teractions between domains, these could in turn be associated into two larger topologically related regions. One region encompasses seven interacting domains and 16 antibodies. This region is probably extracellular by virtue of the interaction of one subgroup with N‐acetylneuraminic acid, and may represent a particularly immunogenic region on this channel protein.