Muscular contraction and cytoplasmic streaming: A new general hypothesis

Several experiments point out that some crossbridges remain attached to the thin filaments at rest. It is assumed, in this paper, that these cross-bridges exert mechanical tractions on the thin filaments, directed from the thin to the thick filaments. When contraction is triggered off, a conformational change of the attached crossbridges is induced by the chemical energy released from ATP splitting. This conformational change leads to the reduction of the mechanical tensions. The electrostatic repulsive forces between the filaments become therefore automatically preponderant. This phenomenon induces a sideways expansion of the filament lattice and, taking into account the elasticity of muscle, a contraction in the direction of the filaments. This model accounts for the most important physiological and thermodynamical properties of muscle (tension-length curves, responses to quick stretch and quick release, Fenn effect, Hill's relation, behaviour of skinned fibres). It is directly applicable to all kinds of muscles and to cytoplasmic streaming, provided only actin, but not necessarily myosin, filaments are present in the cell.