Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Bringing muscles into focus; the first two millennia
- 2 Muscle metabolism after the Chemical Revolution; lactic acid takes the stage
- 3 The relationship between mechanical events, heat production and metabolism; studies between 1840 and 1930
- 4 The influence of brewing science on the study of muscle glycolysis; adenylic acid and the ammonia controversy
- 5 The discovery of phosphagen and adenosinetriphosphate; contraction without lactic acid
- 6 Adenosinetriphosphate as fuel and as phosphate-carrier
- 7 Early studies of muscle structure and theories of contraction, 1870–1939
- 8 Interaction of actomyosin and ATP
- 9 Some theories of contraction mechanism, 1939 to 1956
- 10 On myosin, actin and tropomyosin
- 11 The sliding mechanism
- 12 How does the sliding mechanism work?
- 13 Excitation, excitation-contraction coupling and relaxation
- 14 Happenings in intact muscle: the challenge of adenosinetriphosphate breakdown
- 15 Rigor and the chemical changes responsible for its onset
- 16 Respiration
- 17 Oxidative phosphorylation
- 18 The regulation of carbohydrate metabolism for energy supply to the muscle machine
- 19 A comparative study of the striated muscle of vertebrates
- 20 Enzymic and other effects of denervation, cross-innervation and repeated stimulation
- 21 Some aspects of muscle disease
- 22 Contraction in muscles of invertebrates
- 23 Vertebrate smooth muscle
- 24 Energy provision and contractile proteins in non-muscular functions
- The perspective surveyed
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
8 - Interaction of actomyosin and ATP
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Bringing muscles into focus; the first two millennia
- 2 Muscle metabolism after the Chemical Revolution; lactic acid takes the stage
- 3 The relationship between mechanical events, heat production and metabolism; studies between 1840 and 1930
- 4 The influence of brewing science on the study of muscle glycolysis; adenylic acid and the ammonia controversy
- 5 The discovery of phosphagen and adenosinetriphosphate; contraction without lactic acid
- 6 Adenosinetriphosphate as fuel and as phosphate-carrier
- 7 Early studies of muscle structure and theories of contraction, 1870–1939
- 8 Interaction of actomyosin and ATP
- 9 Some theories of contraction mechanism, 1939 to 1956
- 10 On myosin, actin and tropomyosin
- 11 The sliding mechanism
- 12 How does the sliding mechanism work?
- 13 Excitation, excitation-contraction coupling and relaxation
- 14 Happenings in intact muscle: the challenge of adenosinetriphosphate breakdown
- 15 Rigor and the chemical changes responsible for its onset
- 16 Respiration
- 17 Oxidative phosphorylation
- 18 The regulation of carbohydrate metabolism for energy supply to the muscle machine
- 19 A comparative study of the striated muscle of vertebrates
- 20 Enzymic and other effects of denervation, cross-innervation and repeated stimulation
- 21 Some aspects of muscle disease
- 22 Contraction in muscles of invertebrates
- 23 Vertebrate smooth muscle
- 24 Energy provision and contractile proteins in non-muscular functions
- The perspective surveyed
- References
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
THE MACHINE AS ENZYME AND THE FUEL AS SUBSTRATE
The discovery by Engelhardt & Lyubimova in 1939 of the ATPase activity of myosin opened a new era in muscle biochemistry. Lundsgaard (8) had suggested that breakdown of ATP might be associated with restoration of the contractile substance, and D. M. Needham (1) that possibly ATP had some special spatial relationship to the myosin micellae. But the idea of the enzymic activity of the muscle machinery itself was an entirely new one, and the Russian workers fully realised its implications. They endeavoured to free the myosin from enzymic activity by repeated washing and reprecipitation but instead the activity rose to a fairly constant level. The purified myosin split off only one phosphate group, yielding ADP. They remarked on the great heat-lability of the ATPase, its activity being lost in 10 min at 37° and compared this with the low coagulation temperature of myosin known since the time of Kühne; they also noticed the similar sensitivity to acids of myosin as protein and as ATPase. These similarities served to increase the probability of the identity of the ATPase and myosin, but Engelhardt & Lyubimova considered that no final decision could be taken.
In 1941 Engelhardt, Lyubimova & Meitina (1) were the first to test the effect of ATP on myosin threads. These, though containing only about 2 % of protein, showed a certain amount of tensile strength; they were immersed in fluid and connected with the lever of a torsion balance so that when tension (about 200 mg) was applied the extensibility could be measured. They found that addition of 5 × 10−3M ATP caused considerable increase, 50–100%, in the extensibility.
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- Machina CarnisThe Biochemistry of Muscular Contraction in its Historical Development, pp. 146 - 168Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1971