Water and Muscle Contraction

International Journal of Molecular Sciences

关键词: Water;    muscle contraction;    osmotic pressure;    chemical potential;    stiffness;    viscosity;    working stroke;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ijms9081435

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

The interaction between water and the protein of the contractile machinery as well as the tendency of these proteins to form geometrically ordered structures provide a link between water and muscle contraction. Protein osmotic pressure is strictly related to the chemical potential of the contractile proteins, to the stiffness of muscle structures and to the viscosity of the sliding of the thin over the thick filaments. Muscle power output and the steady rate of contraction are linked by modulating a single parameter, a viscosity coefficient. Muscle operation is characterized by working strokes of much shorter length and much quicker than in the classical model. As a consequence the force delivered and the stiffness attained by attached cross-bridges is much larger than usually believed.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2008 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open-access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).