Stretch of muscle sarcomere induces protrusion of myosinheads toward actin so as to facilitate formation of contractile cross-bridges.

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Stretch of sarcomeres of striated muscle induces higher contractile activity in striated muscle. Well organized fine structure of sarcomere is responsible to this stretch activation phenomenon, but its detailed mechanism has not been elucidated. Developing two-dimensional x-ray diffraction techniques, we found that stretch induces protrusion of myosin heads out of the thick filament backbone toward the neighboring actin molecules on thin filament so as to facilitate formation of contractile cross-bridges between myosin heads and actin molecules.