The myofibrillar protein, projectin, is highly conserved across insect evolution except for its PEVK domain.

ABSTRACT: All striated muscles respond to stretch by a delayed increase in tension. This physiological response, known as stretch activation, is, however, predominantly found in vertebrate cardiac muscle and insect asynchronous flight muscles. Stretch activation relies on an elastic third filament system composed of giant proteins known as titin in vertebrates or kettin and projectin in insects. The projectin insect protein functions jointly as a "scaffold and ruler" system during myofibril assembly and as an elastic protein during stretch activation. An evolutionary analysis of the projectin molecule could potentially provide insight into how distinct protein regions may have evolved in response to different evolutionary constraints. We mined candidate genes in representative insect species from He

SUBMITTER: Ayme-Southgate AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2775928 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature