Titin: A Tunable Spring in Active Muscle

Abstract

Muscle has conventionally been viewed as a motor that converts chemical to kinetic energy in series with a passive spring, but new insights emerge when muscle is viewed as a composite material whose elastic elements are tuned by activation. New evidence demonstrates that calcium-dependent binding of N2A titin to actin increases titin stiffness in active skeletal muscles, which explains many long-standing enigmas of muscle physiology.

Topics & Concepts