Tension Triggers Muscle Building
Sunday, March 16, 2014 - 18:35
in Biology & Nature
In order to move the body, skeletal muscles are pulling on the skeleton. For efficient muscle and skeletal movements it is essential that the muscle contracts only along a defined axis, for instance for the leg movement along the thigh. Such a directed contraction is achieved by the myofibrils that span through the entire length of the muscle. At both ends, the myofibrils are anchored to the tendon cells, which themselves are linked to the skeleton. "Thereby, the entire force is transduced from the muscle to the skeleton," Frank Schnorrer describes. How can the regular architecture of a many hundred sarcomeres long myofibril be built along a defined axis during muscle development? read more