The Structural Basis of Muscular Contraction
Published on 6. December 2012
716 pages
978-1-4613-3183-4 (ISBN)
Description
Muscular contraction provides one of the most fascinating topics for a biophysicist to study. Although muscle comprises a molecular machine whereby chemical energy is converted to mechanical work, its action in producing force is something that is readily observable in everyday life, a feature that does not apply to most other structures of biophysical inter est. In addition, muscle is so beautifully organized at the microscopic level that those important structural probes, electron microscopy (with the associated image analysis methods) and X-ray diffraction, have pro vided a wealth of information about the arrangements of the constituent proteins in a variety of muscle types. But, despite all this, the answer to the question "How does muscle work?" is still uncertain, especially with regard to the molecular events by which force is actually generated, and the question remains one of the major unsolved problems in biology. With this problem in mind, this book has been written to collect together the available evidence on the structures of the muscle fila ments and on their arrangements in different muscle cells, to extract the common structural features of these cells, and thus to attempt to define a possible series of mechanical steps that will describe at molecular resolu tion the process by which force is generated. The book cannot be considered to be an introductory text; in fact, it presents a very detailed account of muscle structure as gleaned mainly from electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction.
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John Squire
The Structural Basis of Muscular Contraction
Book
11/2011
Springer
€106.99
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John Squire
The Structural Basis of Muscular Contraction
Book
09/1981
Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers
€109.13
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Content
1. Introduction.- 1.1. Introduction: Muscles and Movement.- 1.2. Classification of Muscle Types.- 1.3. Vertebrate Skeletal Muscle.- 1.4. Introduction to Muscle Physiology.- 1.5. The Molecular Biophysicist's Approach to Muscle.- 2. X-Ray Diffraction Methods in Muscle Research.- 2.1. Introduction.- 2.2. Principles of Diffraction.- 2.3. Diffraction from Helical Structures.- 2.4. The Jargon of X-Ray Crystallography.- 2.5. Practical X-Ray Diffraction Methods.- 3. Muscle Preparation, Electron Microscopy, and Image Analysis.- 3.1. Introduction.- 3.2. Muscle Dissection and Initial Treatment.- 3.3. Preparative Methods in Biological Electron Microscopy.- 3.4. Biological Electron Microscopy.- 3.5. Methods of Image Analysis.- 4. Protein Conformation and Characterization.- 4.1. Amino Acids, Polypeptides, and Proteins.- 4.2. Regular Protein Conformations.- 4.3. Structure of Fibrous ?-Proteins.- 4.4. Globular Proteins.- 5. Thin Filament Structure and Regulation.- 5.1. Introduction.- 5.2. Actin.- 5.3. Tropomyosin.- 5.4. Troponin.- 5.5. Thin Filament Structure and Regulation.- 5.6. Further Aspects of Thin Filament Regulation.- 6. Structure, Components, and Interactions of the Myosin Molecule.- 6.1. Introduction.- 6.2. Characterization of the Myosin Molecule.- 6.3. Aggregation of Myosin and its Subfragments.- 6.4. Conclusion.- 7. Vertebrate Skeletal Muscle.- 7.1. Introduction: Structure of the Sarcomere.- 7.2. Thick Filament Symmetry and the Transverse Structure of the A-Band.- 7.3. Components and Axial Structure of the A-Band.- 7.4. Structure of the I-Band.- 7.5. The Three-Dimensional Structure of the Sarcomere.- 8. Comparative Ultrastructures of Diverse Muscle Types.- 8.1. Introduction.- 8.2. Arthropod Muscles.- 8.3. Molluscan Muscles.- 8.4. Vertebrate Smooth Muscles.- 8.5.Obliquely Striated Muscles.- 8.6. Discussion.- 9. Molecular Packing in Myosin-Containing Filaments.- 9.1. Introduction.- 9.2. Myosin Packing in Uniform Layers.- 9.3. Subfilament Models of Myosin Packing.- 9.4. Detailed Models of Vertebrate Skeletal Muscle Myosin Filaments.- 9.5. Models for the Myosin Filaments in Vertebrate Smooth Muscle.- 9.6. Discussion.- 10. Structural Evidence on the Contractile Event.- 10.1. Introduction.- 10.2. Structure of Defined Static States.- 10.3. Evidence for Structural Changes during Contraction.- 10.4. Artificially Modified Muscle Structures.- 10.5. Summary.- 11. Discussion: Modeling the Contractile Event.- 11.1. Introduction.- 11.2. Evidence from Mechanical Experiments.- 11.3. Equatorial X-Ray Diffraction Evidence on Cross-Bridge Kinetics.- 11.4. Scenarios for the Cross-Bridge Cycle.- 11.5. Conclusion: Future Prospects.- References.- Suggested Further Reading.
