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，肌肉在不同物种之间变得高度专门化，以服务于不同类型的运动。一般来说，小动物的肌肉收缩得非常快，因为速度对躲避捕食者至关重要；而大型动物的肌肉收缩得很慢，因为节约是非常重要的。一些分子和细胞特征被认为对速度与经济光谱有贡献。这位研究员和他实验室的其他人最近发现了一种与物种体重有关的主要肌肉蛋白质的非常系统的结构变异。这个项目的主要目的是测试这种变化是否对体重差异很大的哺乳动物的速度和经济谱有贡献。将研究来自不同物种的单个肌肉细胞的收缩。将进行测试，以确定这种蛋白质的结构变化是否有助于某些物种的肌肉更快，而另一些物种的肌肉更经济。这一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门化具有重要的进化意义。该项目将为学生提供绝佳的机会，让他们在分子和细胞水平上进行训练，并将实验室研究结果与物种之间众所周知的运动特征差异相结合。项目结果将以一种可理解的方式向公众提供（例如，在当地学校进行演讲，邀请学生参观实验室），以灌输对动物用于多种肌肉功能的各种分子和细胞机制的更多欣赏。

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.