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

在所有动物物种中，肌肉驱动运动和其他重要的身体功能，例如在呼吸过程中泵血和移动空气。肌肉在进化过程中经历了巨大的多样化。因此，肌肉在不同物种中变得高度专业化，以服务于不同类型的运动。一般来说，小型动物的肌肉收缩非常迅速，速度对于躲避捕食者至关重要，而大型动物的肌肉收缩缓慢，经济非常重要。几个分子和细胞特征被认为有助于速度与经济谱。研究人员和他实验室的其他人最近发现了一种与物种体重相关的主要肌肉蛋白质的非常系统的结构变异。该项目的主要目的是测试这种变化是否有助于不同体重的哺乳动物之间的速度与经济谱。收缩将在来自不同物种的单个肌肉细胞中进行研究。将进行测试，以确定这种蛋白质的结构变化是否有助于肌肉在某些物种中快速，而在其他物种中更经济。这些结果将对更好地理解肌肉如何在不同生物体和不同大小的生物体中变得专业化具有重要的进化意义。该项目将为学生提供极好的机会，在分子和细胞水平上进行培训，并将实验室研究结果与物种之间运动特征的众所周知的差异相结合。项目结果将向公众公布（例如，在当地学校的演讲，接待学生参观实验室），以可理解的方式灌输一个更大的赞赏各种分子和细胞机制，动物采用服务于一个极其多样化的肌肉功能。

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.