Exploitable results
Insect flight muscle is not fully activated by calcium and must be stretched to attain full activation. We have identified two isoforms of a regualtory protein in Drosophila.
One isoform stimulates contraction when it binds calcium; the other stimulates contraction when muscle fibres are stretched. This has shown how the flight muscle can contract in two different ways.
The Drosophila protein is the first example of a protein in muscle that responds to stretch and it will have applications to heart muscle, which is also stretch-activated. Drosophila regulatory proteins have been expressed and mutations created to study the function of the proteins in vitro. Thin filaments containing regulatory proteins have been isolated from Drosophila and a change in the structure of the filament on calcium binding has been determined by electron microscopy.
The function of regulatory proteins is being studied by reconstituting complexes for biochemical and electron microscopic investigation. This is combined with a study of the function of the proteins in intact fibres by mechanical measurements.
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