PubMed HealthSearch

Biomedical subjects

J Borejdo

Publications and source records attributed to J Borejdo.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

Fluctuations in polarized fluorescence: evidence that muscle cross bridges rotate repetitively during contraction.

Particular thiols of the myosin subfragment 1 moieties of single glycerinated muscle fibers are covalently labeled with rhodamine. By using appropriate solutions such fibers can be relaxed, be in rigor, or develop active isometric tension. The rhodamine is excited by polarized 514.5-nm laser light; the greater than 580-nm fluorescence is resolved into orthogonal components and the intensity of each is measured by a computer-interfaced photon counting system. Fluctuations over-and-above noise appear in steady-state activity but not in relaxation or rigor and not when the fluorophore is actin-attached instead of myosin-attached. Fluctuations also appear in ratios of polarized intensities--quantities sensitive to fluorophore attitude but not to fluorophore number. The fluctuations are dominated by low (approximately 2 Hz) frequencies similar to separately measured ATPase frequencies. The fluctuations are ascribed to repetitive motion of the cross bridges to which the rhodamine is attached.

Actins

A study of the dynamic properties of actomyosin systems by quasi-elastic light scattering.

A laser light source and a digital autocorrelator were employed in the study of the molecular dyanmics of acto-heavy meromyosin during the splitting of ATP. Low protein concentrations were used, so that molecular and not gel properties were evident. The addition of Mg2+ to acto-heavy meromyosin solutions in the presence of ATP caused a marked widening of the spectrum at high scattering angles. No such change was observed when chemically inactivated heavy meromyosin was used when actin was cross-linked or when the proteins were in a high ionic strength solution. The data can be interpreted in terms of pronounced change in flexibility of acto-heavy meromyosin induced by active mechanochemical coupling.

Actins

Polarization of fluorescence from single skinned glycerinated rabbit psoas fibers in rigor and relaxation.

Single skinned glycerinated muscle fibers were labelled with the fluorescent dye N-(iodoacetylamino)-1-naphthylamine-5-sulfonic acid (1,5-IAEDANS). The heavy chain of myosin (EC 3.6.1.3) was labelled predominantly when the reaction was carried out in relaxation at 0 degrees C. Mechanical properties of skinned fibers were little affected by labelling with the fluorophore. Rigor tension developed upon transferring native or labelled skinned fibers from relaxing to rigor solutions lacking Ca2+ was very small but could be enhanced by progressively incresing Ca2 concentration; the rigor tension decreased with increasing sarcomer length. Polarization of fluorescence of skinned fibers reacted with 1,5-IAEDANS was measured along the line of excitation as well as at 90 degrees to it. The mean values of parallel and perpendicular components of polarization of labelled fibers measured at 0 degrees were close to the values obtained for native fibers irrigated with 1,5-IAEDANS-labelled heavy meromyosin fiber "ghosts" irrigated with labelled heavy meromyosin, and oriented bundles of myofibrils reacted with the same fluorophore. Skinned fibers stretched above the rest length and then irrigated with 1,5-IAEDANS-labelled heavy meromyosin gave rise to polarized fluorescence close to the values theoretically predicted for an assembly of helically arranged fluorophores. Using 90 degrees detecttion system a satisfactory fit to the theory could be obtained from single fibers labelled with 1,5-IAEDANS and measured in rigor. The angle between the fiber axis and the direction of the emission dipole of 1,5-IAEDANS attached to subfragment-1 was estimated to be near 40 degrees.

Actins

Fluctuations in tension during contraction of single muscle fibers.

We have searched for fluctuations in the steady-state tension developed by stimulated single muscle fibers. Such tension "noise" is expected to be present as a result of the statistical fluctuations in the number and/or state of myosin cross-bridges interacting with thin filament sites at any time. A sensitive electro-optical tension transducer capable of resolving the expected fluctuations in magnitude and frequency was constructed to search for the fluctuations. The noise was analyzed by computing the power spectra and amplitude of stochastic fluctuations in the photomultiplier counting rate, which was made proportional to muscle force. The optical system and electronic instrumentation together with the minicomputer software are described. Tensions were measured in single skinned glycerinated rabbit psoas muscle fibers in rigor and during contraction and relaxation. The results indicate the presence of fluctuations in contracting muscles and a complete absence of tension noise in eith rigor or relaxation. Also, a numerical method was developed to simulate the power spectra and amplitude of fluctuations, given the rate constants for association and dissociation of the cross-bridges and actin. The simulated power spectra and the frequency distributions observed experimentally are similar.

Animals

Tension generation by isolated myofibrils.

The technique for mechanical dissection of microscopic myofibrilar bundles containing few myofibrils is described. A sensitive electrooptical tension transducer capable of resolving the tension generated by such myofibrilar bundles to within a fraction of a percent is used to study the response of the preparations to low ATP concentrations. The rate of tension development decreased with a decrease in ATP concentration. Below 10(-6) M ATP the myofibrils did not demonstrate any mechanical activity at all. These findings are discussed in terms of the kinetics of the cross-bridge cycle.

Adenosine Triphosphate

Evidence for myosin-linked regulation in guinea pig taenia coli muscle.

The ATPase activity of actomyosin prepared from taenia coli muscle of guinea pig was found to increase upon adding rabbit skeletal heavy meromyosin (HMM) in the absence of Ca2+. SDS-gel electrophoresis of muscle homogenates did not reveal the presence of troponin. Ca2+-regulation in taenia coli muscle thus appears to be myosin-linked. The glycerinated muscles which did not develop any tension in the presence of EGTA contracted after irrigation with rabbit skeletal myosin. Skeletal HMM could also cause tension generation in strips of glycerinated taenia coli in the presence of EGTA. The tension developed by the muscles in the presence of Ca2+ was increased if HMM was added. The HMM-induced tension was associated with a marked increase in ATPase activity both in the presence and in the absence of Ca2+. No HMM-associated tension could be detected when inactivated HMM was employed or when MgATP was substituted with Mg-pyrophosphate or Mg-AMP-PNP. The mechanical effect of HMM probably results from a mechanochemical interaction between the added HMM and muscle actin.

Adenosine Triphosphatases

Tension development in skinned glycerinated rabbit psoas fiber segments irrigated with soluble myosin fragments.

Single glycerinated rabbit psoas muscle fibers were skinned by splitting them lengthwise. The fiber segments thus obtained were more easily accessible to solutes in the surrounding medium than the intact fibers. Using such segments, active tension could be fully abolished by adding N-ethylmaleimide under conditions which lead to inhibition of actin activation of the ATPase activity of myosin. Such muscles could, however, develop tension after irrigation with myosin or with the water-soluble active myosin fragments heavy meromyosin (HMM) or its subfragment 1 (HMM-S1). The induced tensions increased with increasing protein concentration in the irrigating solution. At any given protein concentration, the tension generated by myosin was larger than that produced by HMM which was, in turn, greater than that induced by HMM-S1 e.g. at 15 mg/ml protein the tensions produced by these three myosin moieties were 44.0, 14.0 and 2.8 g/cm2, respectively. The tension was found to be intimately associated with ATP splitting; thus, HMM and HMM-S1 which have been treated with reagents abolishing actin-activated ATPase failed to induce tension development. A contractile force may thus be generated through the interaction with actin of the water-soluble, enzymatically active, myosin subfragments involving the splitting of ATP.

Actins

Sarcomere length changes during stimulation of frog semitendinosus muscle.

A method is described for detecting rapid changes in sarcomere length at different points along a muscle specimen during stimulation. Reproducible differences in behaviour are observed at different positions along the length of the muscle both during contraction and during relaxation. By summing individual observations made at points closely spaced along the specimen it is found that in tetanus at 6 degrees C the average sarcomere contraction is about 5% for an initial length of 2.6 mum; a maximum rate of contraction of about 4 nm.ms-1 (0.16% ms-1) is reached and maintained for some 10 ms during the development of tension. In twitch the corresponding values are 4% and 3 nm.ms-1 (0.12% ms-1).

Animals