Research Projects

Sarcomere: unit structure of muscle

Titin Research Roundup Titin is a high-molecular weight protein (3.0-3.8 MDa) in the sarcomeres of vertebrate striated muscles. A plethora of titin isoforms is expressed from the copy of a single titin gene (on chromosome 2 in mouse and humans). (more...)

Mechanics of the Single Myofibril The single myofibril is the minimum preparation that retains the natural architecture of the sarcomere. As such, it has some important advantages over the larger preparations that also retain the lattice. (more...)

Physiology of Cardiac and Skeletal Muscle Recent investigations using quantitative RT-PCR and high-resolution SDS-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis showed that the titin isoform expression pattern is modified dramatically during perinatal heart development (Opitz et al., 2004). (more...)

Cell Biology of Vertebrate and Invertebrate Muscle We are interested in finding out how titin or titin-like proteins act together with actin, myosin, and many other cytoskeletal proteins to perform the important tasks of scaffolding, mechanical sensing and force generation. (more...)

Molecular Biophysics: Titin (AFM mechanics), Actin, Myosin Single-Molecule Atomic Force Microscopy of Titin Actin-Myosin in-vitro Motility Assay (more...)