Sliding filament model

Figure 14.11 The sliding filament model of muscle contraction. The actin (red) and myosin (green) filaments slide past each other without shortening.

Studies on muscle contraction carried out between 1930 and 1960 heralded the modem era of research on cytoskeletal stmctures. Actin and myosin were identified as the major contractile proteins of muscle, and detailed electron microscopic studies on sarcomeres by H.E. Huxley and associates in the 1950s produced the concept of the sliding filament model, which remains the keystone to an understanding of the molecular mechanisms responsible for cytoskeletal motility. 

The sliding filament model describes the mechanism involved in muscle contraction. In this model, sarcomeres become shorter when the thin and thick filaments slide alongside each other and telescope together, with ATP being consumed. During contraction, the following reaction cycle is repeated several times ... 

Hugh Huxley proposed the sliding filament model for muscular contraction. 

An early test of the sliding filament model was the very careful measurement by Gordon et al. (1966) of the active tension produced by the muscle at different sarcomere lengths (Fig. 7B-D). If the myosin heads or crossbridges act as independent force generators, then, as the sarcomere length... 

Haselgrove, J. C., and Huxley, H. E. (1973). X-ray evidence for radial crossbridge movement and for the sliding filament model in actively contracting skeletal muscle. /. Mol. Biol. 77, 549-68. 

Figure 34.14. Sliding-Filament Model. Muscle contraction depends on the motion of thin fdaments (blue) relative to thick fdaments (red). [After H. E. Huxley. The mechanism of muscular contraction. Copyright 1965 hy Scientific American, Inc. All rights reserved.]... 

See also Actin and Myosin, The Structure of Muscle, The Sliding Filament Model, Tropomyosin, Troponins... 

The sliding filament model explains the molecular basis by which muscular contraction occurs. During muscular contraction, thin filaments within the sarcomere of a myofibril are pulled towards the center of the sarcomere (called the H zone) by the thick filaments. In the process, the sarcomeric length shortens and the myofibril shortens. As a result, the muscle contracts (see Figure 8.11). Steps in the process include the following ... 

Muscle contraction can be explained by the sliding filament model on the basis of the structures illustrated in Figure 8.9a and described as follows ... 

See also The Sliding Filament Model, The Role of Calcium in Contraction,... 

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