Thick Filament Length Changes in Muscle Have Both Elastic and Structural Components

Massimo Reconditi; Luca Fusi; Marco Caremani; Elisabetta Brunello; Marco Linari; Gabriella Piazzesi; Vincenzo Lombardi; Malcolm Irving

doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2019.02.009

Thick Filament Length Changes in Muscle Have Both Elastic and Structural Components

Massimo Reconditi, Luca Fusi, Marco Caremani, Elisabetta Brunello, Marco Linari, Gabriella Piazzesi, Vincenzo Lombardi, Malcolm Irving^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

University of Florence

Research output: Contribution to journal › Editorial › peer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Muscle is a biological machine for producing force and movement, and the physical concept of elasticity has long been fundamental to ideas about the mechanism of muscle contraction. In the original concept of the sliding filament theory, the contractile filaments were considered to be inextensible, but x-ray measurements of filament periodicities in contracting muscles in the 1990s (1, 2) showed that both the thick (myosin-containing) and thin (actin-containing) filaments are in fact compliant. The elastic extension of each filament is ∼0.3% of its length under the force (T0) generated by a fully activated muscle at fixed muscle length. This discovery led to some quantitative refinement of ideas about the mechanism of contraction without changing the fundamental concepts.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	983-984
Number of pages	2
Journal	Biophysical Journal
Volume	116
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2019.02.009
Publication status	Published - 19 Mar 2019

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abstract = "Muscle is a biological machine for producing force and movement, and the physical concept of elasticity has long been fundamental to ideas about the mechanism of muscle contraction. In the original concept of the sliding filament theory, the contractile filaments were considered to be inextensible, but x-ray measurements of filament periodicities in contracting muscles in the 1990s (1, 2) showed that both the thick (myosin-containing) and thin (actin-containing) filaments are in fact compliant. The elastic extension of each filament is ∼0.3% of its length under the force (T0) generated by a fully activated muscle at fixed muscle length. This discovery led to some quantitative refinement of ideas about the mechanism of contraction without changing the fundamental concepts.",

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AU - Reconditi, Massimo

AU - Fusi, Luca

AU - Caremani, Marco

AU - Brunello, Elisabetta

AU - Linari, Marco

AU - Piazzesi, Gabriella

AU - Lombardi, Vincenzo

AU - Irving, Malcolm

PY - 2019/3/19

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N2 - Muscle is a biological machine for producing force and movement, and the physical concept of elasticity has long been fundamental to ideas about the mechanism of muscle contraction. In the original concept of the sliding filament theory, the contractile filaments were considered to be inextensible, but x-ray measurements of filament periodicities in contracting muscles in the 1990s (1, 2) showed that both the thick (myosin-containing) and thin (actin-containing) filaments are in fact compliant. The elastic extension of each filament is ∼0.3% of its length under the force (T0) generated by a fully activated muscle at fixed muscle length. This discovery led to some quantitative refinement of ideas about the mechanism of contraction without changing the fundamental concepts.

AB - Muscle is a biological machine for producing force and movement, and the physical concept of elasticity has long been fundamental to ideas about the mechanism of muscle contraction. In the original concept of the sliding filament theory, the contractile filaments were considered to be inextensible, but x-ray measurements of filament periodicities in contracting muscles in the 1990s (1, 2) showed that both the thick (myosin-containing) and thin (actin-containing) filaments are in fact compliant. The elastic extension of each filament is ∼0.3% of its length under the force (T0) generated by a fully activated muscle at fixed muscle length. This discovery led to some quantitative refinement of ideas about the mechanism of contraction without changing the fundamental concepts.

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DO - 10.1016/j.bpj.2019.02.009

M3 - Editorial

AN - SCOPUS:85062187184

SN - 0006-3495

VL - 116

SP - 983

EP - 984

JO - Biophysical Journal

JF - Biophysical Journal

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ER -

Thick Filament Length Changes in Muscle Have Both Elastic and Structural Components

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