Identification of nephrin interaction partners by GST–nephrin tail pull-downs assays and mass spectrometry. GST–nephrin tail (20 μg) or GST (20 μg) were incubated for 4 h with 400 μg of glomerular lysate, and the bound proteins were separated by 6% SDS/PAGE followed by staining with GelCode blue. To upscale the reactions, three parallel pull-downs were combined per lane. The bands observed in GST–nephrin tail pull-downs (lane 2) were identified by mass spectrometry as αII spectrin, βII spectrin, IQGAP1, MAGI-2, CASK, and α-actinin. The ≈200-kDa band represents an unknown protein.