The Sliding-Filament Theory of Muscle Contraction

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This book offers a comprehensive account of the theory of muscle contraction, which has grown up in parallel with exciting experimental discoveries of the molecular mechanism of muscle action. Mathematical models of contractility have cohered about a framework built on the discovery of sliding filaments and the swinging-lever-arm mechanism, where each myosin motor makes a working stroke, creating the tension which drives shortening and resists stretching. After reviewing the mechanical and biochemical background, the theory is applied to steady-state and transient phenomena in muscle fibres, and to motility assays and single-molecule experiments with optical trapping. A separate theory describes the cooperative regulation of muscle by calcium via tropomyosin and troponin on actin filaments, firstly in solution and finally in a grand synthesis for the behaviour of partially activated muscle.

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