(Phys.org) —Metamaterials are defined as artificial materials that have been engineered to have unusual properties that are not found in nature. For instance, ordinary materials (say, a rubber band) that are under tension ...
What can a Thai water bug teach us about our muscles, especially the heart? A lot, says Professor of Biological Science Kenneth Taylor. New research by Taylor published today in Science Advances gives scientists better insight ...
Cell & Microbiology
Sep 30, 2016
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685
The 'stiff-legged' walk of a motor protein along a tightrope-like filament has been captured for the first time.
Bio & Medicine
Apr 24, 2015
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26
At the molecular level, muscle contraction is defined by myosin molecules pulling actin filaments. New electron cryomicroscopy images with unprecedented resolution taken by researchers at Osaka University reveal unexpectedly ...
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 8, 2017
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Molecular "motors" are at the root of most biological movement. They propel cell components, whole cells, and even our muscles on command. Barbara Imperiali and a team from the Massachusetts Institute of ...
Biochemistry
May 10, 2011
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Researchers have shed light on the molecular mechanisms underlying hibernation, publishing their findings today as a Reviewed Preprint in eLife.
Plants & Animals
Feb 20, 2024
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976
Researchers at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) developed a mouse model that enables them to look inside a working muscle and identify the proteins that allow the sarcomere ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jun 19, 2020
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176
Every living thing moves—prey from predators, ants to crumbs, leaves toward sunlight. But at the most fundamental level, scientists are still struggling to grasp the physics behind how our own cells build, move, transport ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 30, 2019
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1911
The basics of how a muscle generates power remain the same: Filaments of myosin tugging on filaments of actin shorten, or contract, the muscle – but the power doesn't just come from what's happening straight up and down ...
Other
Jul 9, 2013
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0
Asymmetry plays a major role in biology at every scale: think of DNA spirals, the fact that the human heart is positioned on the left, our preference to use our left or right hand ... A team from the Institute of biology ...
Cell & Microbiology
Nov 22, 2018
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Myosins comprise a family of ATP-dependent motor proteins and are best known for their role in muscle contraction and their involvement in a wide range of other eukaryotic motility processes. They are responsible for actin-based motility. The term was originally used to describe a group of similar ATPases found in striated and smooth muscle cells. Following the discovery by Pollard and Korn of enzymes with myosin-like function in Acanthamoeba castellanii, a large number of divergent myosin genes have been discovered throughout eukaryotes. Thus, although myosin was originally thought to be restricted to muscle cells (hence, "myo"), there is no single "myosin" but rather a huge superfamily of genes whose protein products share the basic properties of actin binding, ATP hydrolysis (ATPase enzyme activity), and force transduction. Virtually all eukaryotic cells contain myosin isoforms. Some isoforms have specialized functions in certain cell types (such as muscle), while other isoforms are ubiquitous. The structure and function of myosin is strongly conserved across species, to the extent that rabbit muscle myosin II will bind to actin from an amoeba.
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