title: Making muscle elastic: the structural basis of myomesin stretching.
abstract: Skeletal and cardiac muscles are remarkable biological machines that support and move our bodies and power the rhythmic work of our lungs and hearts. As well as producing active contractile force, muscles are also passively elastic, which is essential to their performance. The origins of both active contractile and passive elastic forces can be traced to the individual proteins that make up the highly ordered structure of muscle. In this Primer, we describe the organization of sarcomeres--the structural units that produce contraction--and the nature of the proteins that make muscle elastic. In particular, we focus on an elastic protein called myomesin, whose novel modular architecture helps explain elasticity.
authors.affiliation: Astbury Centre for Structural Molecular Biology and Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology, Leeds University, Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Larissa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tskhovrebova
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Trinick
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D064211:Connectin; D004548:Elasticity; D006801:Humans; D018485:Muscle Fibers, Skeletal / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D009124:Muscle Proteins / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D009206:Myocardium / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000378:metabolism / Q000648:ultrastructure; D012518:Sarcomeres / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D064211:Connectin; D009124:Muscle Proteins