An exceptionally fast actomyosin reaction powers insect flight muscle.

ABSTRACT: Insects, as a group, have been remarkably successful in adapting to a great range of physical and biological environments, in large part because of their ability to fly. The evolution of flight in small insects was accompanied by striking adaptations of the thoracic musculature that enabled very high wing beat frequencies. At the cellular and protein filament level, a stretch activation mechanism evolved that allowed high-oscillatory work to be achieved at very high frequencies as contraction and nerve stimulus became asynchronous. At the molecular level, critical adaptations occurred within the motor protein myosin II, because its elementary interactions with actin set the speed of sarcomere contraction. Here, we show that the key myosin enzymatic adaptations required for powering the ver

SUBMITTER: Swank DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1859965 | biostudies-literature | 2006 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature