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
10 - On myosin, actin and tropomyosin
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
SOLUBILITY AND EXTRACTABILITY OF THE STRUCTURAL PROTEINS
In chapter 8 we were concerned with the growth of knowledge of actomyosin- ATP interactions from 1939 to about 1953. In chapter 9 we considered the theories of contraction (with their interesting variations) which resulted from the realisation of the importance of the actomyosin-ATP relationship. Here again the period chosen terminated about 1953, because at this time the idea of the sliding-filament mechanism began to emerge; as evidence has accumulated, this has gradually replaced almost all other postulated mechanisms. The story of this will occupy chapter 11. In the present chapter I want to discuss the properties of the individual structural proteins, to which another was added in 1946 by the discovery of tropomyosin by Bailey (2).
We have already discussed the results of earlier workers who estimated ‘myosin’, myogen, globulin X and stroma protein in muscle. After the discovery of actin and actomyosin, Balenović & Straub (1) were the first to try to estimate, albeit in an indirect way, the amount of actin present.
As the basis of this method they used the formation of actomyosin when actin was added to excess of myosin, the actomyosin being assessed by the fall in viscosity on addition of ATP. This decrease in specific viscosity as a function of the specific viscosity in presence of ATP, Straub (1) termed the ‘activity’ of unknown ‘myosin’ solutions, and he took the activity of myosin B solutions prepared from muscle in a standard way as 100%.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Machina CarnisThe Biochemistry of Muscular Contraction in its Historical Development, pp. 190 - 236Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1971