Abstract
IT is widely assumed that in contracting striated muscle the head ends of the myosin molecules, called crossbridges, attach to the I-filaments and pull them towards the middle of the sarcomere. There is direct evidence that crossbridges do move axially as the activated muscle shortens1 and become attached to the I-filaments in rigor, when the substrate is absent2,3, but there is no direct evidence of their attachment in active muscle. We set out to detect crossbridge attachment by measuring the intensities of the equatorial X-ray diffraction reflexions in active muscle. From these reflexions one can derive the distribution of diffracting mass between the A and I-filaments3; any lateral movement of the activated crossbridge should thereby be revealed.
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MILLER, A., TREGEAR, R. Evidence concerning Crossbridge Attachment during Muscle Contraction. Nature 226, 1060–1061 (1970). https://doi.org/10.1038/2261060a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2261060a0
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