RESUMO
This is a story about a great scientist, luck, great discovery that changed the future direction of muscle research, war, a clandestine war mission, postwar politics, and an attempt to rewrite scientific history. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, at 44 yr of age, won the Nobel Prize in 1937 for his work on vitamin C and the establishment of the groundwork of the citric acid cycle. He now wanted to investigate one of the fundamental aspects of life and settled on the study of muscle contraction. The Szent-Gyorgyi laboratory in Hungary during World War II demonstrated that contraction could be reproduced in vitro by threads consisting of just two proteins, myosin and the newly discovered protein by Bruno Straub that they called actin. Szent-Gyorgyi called seeing the contraction of these threads, which occurred in the presence of ATP and ions, "the most thrilling moment" of his scientific life. This major discovery of the generation of "life" in a test tube was totally unknown for years by the rest of the world because of the war. When the discovery was finally communicated to the world, it was not immediately accepted by all as being relevant to the physiology of muscle contraction. Nonetheless, this discovery opened up the modern phase of muscle research. Serendipity played an important role in the great discovery, and much later politics would lead to a shocking controversy around the true discoverer of actin.
Assuntos
Actinas/história , Pessoal de Laboratório/história , Prêmio Nobel , Fisiologia/história , Actinas/fisiologia , História do Século XX , HumanosAssuntos
Complexo 2-3 de Proteínas Relacionadas à Actina/história , Actinas/história , Regulação da Expressão Gênica , Acanthamoeba/genética , Acanthamoeba/metabolismo , Citoesqueleto de Actina/química , Citoesqueleto de Actina/genética , Citoesqueleto de Actina/metabolismo , Complexo 2-3 de Proteínas Relacionadas à Actina/química , Complexo 2-3 de Proteínas Relacionadas à Actina/genética , Complexo 2-3 de Proteínas Relacionadas à Actina/metabolismo , Actinas/química , Actinas/genética , Actinas/metabolismo , História do Século XX , Humanos , Listeria monocytogenes/genética , Listeria monocytogenes/metabolismo , Polimerização , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/genética , Saccharomyces cerevisiae/metabolismo , Transdução de Sinais , TermodinâmicaRESUMO
We celebrate the lives of Michael and Kate Bárány in this issue of the Journal of Muscle Research and Cell Motility. Kate and Michael died within weeks of each other in 2011. Joe Chalovich has written about Michael and we write about Kate. As emphasized by Joe, Kate, and Michael were remarkable individuals who survived the Holocaust, the Hungarian revolution, and emerged from as much adversity as one might imagine to become productive scientists, educators, citizens, and symbols of the durability of the human spirit. They present their own story in an essay (Bárány and Bárány 2000) published in a monograph "Selected Topics in the History of Biochemistry." Rather than repeating much of the list of scientific achievements chronicled in these papers, we focus here on Kate, especially in her role as an individual and partner in science, while at the same time being an accomplished teacher, and a champion of women in science.
Assuntos
Bioquímica/história , Contração Muscular , Ensino/história , Actinas/história , Actinas/metabolismo , História do Século XX , História do Século XXI , Holocausto , Hungria , Miosinas de Músculo Esquelético/história , Miosinas de Músculo Esquelético/metabolismoRESUMO
The paper of Edsall and Mehl, 'The effect of denaturing agents on myosin, II. Viscosity and double refraction of flow', J. Biol. Chem. 133 (1940) 409-429, inspired our research on actin and actomyosin. It led to the specific purification of actin with magnesium ions and to the demonstration of the central role of the Mg(2+)-activated actomyosin ATPase in contraction of live muscle.
Assuntos
Actinas/história , Actomiosina/história , Actinas/fisiologia , Actomiosina/fisiologia , Adenosina Trifosfatases/metabolismo , Bioquímica/história , História do Século XX , Magnésio/fisiologia , Contração Muscular/fisiologiaAssuntos
Actinas/história , Actinas/metabolismo , Animais , Biologia/história , Química/história , História do Século XXRESUMO
History of actin research is reviewed with special emphasis on dynamics of the G-F transformation and flexibility or intrafilamentous mobility of F-actin. Good correlation was found between the flexibility of F-actin and its activity in cell motility. In molecular machines such as the flagellar motor and the sliding machine of F-actin and myosin, the coupling between influx and efflux seems to be loose. F-actin would assume multiple active states during sliding on myosin with hydrolysis of ATP. Recently, the three-dimensional structure of actin molecule in crystals has been determined. Actin research is expected to give an answer to the question on the physiological significance of internal mobility of protein molecules and their assemblies and the structural origin of such mobility.
