Myosin Light Chain Regulation of Muscle Contraction: A Phylogenetic/Comparative Approach

Ohio State University Research Foundation -Do Not Use, Columbus OH

Investigators

Abstract

Muscle drives locomotion and other important body functions, such as pumping blood and moving air during respiration, in all animal species. Muscle has undergone tremendous diversification during the course of evolution. As a result, muscle has become highly specialized among different species to serve different types of locomotion. In general, muscles contract very rapidly among small animals, where speed is critically important to avoid predators, and slowly among large animals, where economy is of great importance. Several molecular and cellular features are recognized as contributing to the speed versus economy spectrum. The investigator and others in his laboratory recently discovered a very systematic structural variation in a major muscle protein that is associated with species body mass. The main objective of this project is to test whether this variation contributes to the speed versus economy spectrum among mammals with very different body masses. Contraction will be studied in single muscle cells from different species. Tests will be conducted to determine if the structural variation in this protein contributes to muscles being fast in some species and more economical in other species. The results will have important evolutionary implications for better understanding how muscles have become specialized in different organisms and in organisms of different sizes. This project will provide excellent opportunities for students to be trained at both the molecular and cellular levels and to integrate laboratory findings with well known differences in locomotion characteristics between species. The project results will be made available to the general public (e.g., presentations at local schools, hosting laboratory visits by students) in an understandable manner to instill a greater appreciation for the variety of molecular and cellular mechanisms that animals employ to serve an extremely diverse range of muscle functions.