Study on the mechanism of action of insect flight muscle using muscle fibers with exchanged protein components

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26440185
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Animal physiology/Animal behavior
• Research Institution: Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute
• Principal Investigator: IWAMOTO Hiroyuki 公益財団法人高輝度光科学研究センター, 利用研究促進部門, 特別研究員 (60176568)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 昆虫飛翔筋 / X線回折 / シンクロトロン放射光

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Insects can beat their wings at frequencies of up to 1000 times/s. This is due to the capacity of the flight muscle to undergo fast oscillations. To clarify which of the constituent proteins this property comes from, we developed techniques to exchange specific constituent proteins with exogenous ones obtained from other organisms. Here we succeeded in replacing the endogenous actin filaments of the flight muscle with those from rabbit skeletal muscle. X-ray diffraction studies indicated that the rabbit actin filaments were regenerated in the right position in the muscle with a right orientation, and that the endogenous myosin can form rigor complexes with the rabbit actin filaments.

Free Research Field

生物物理学、動物学、X線回折学