Mathematical Analysis of the Generation of Force and Motion in Contracting Muscle

Abstract

The forces involved in muscle contraction result from the contractile proteins, myosin and actin. Myosin captures the free energy available from the hydrolysis of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and via interaction with actin, generates the force and motion necessary for the survival of higher organisms. How this protein-mediated conversion of chemical energy into mechanical energy occurs remains a fundamental, unresolved question in physiology and biophysics. As a problem in thermodynamics, mathematical modeling of this chemomechanical free energy transduction has played an important role in helping to organize the experimental database into a coherent framework. In this chapter, I will discuss basic models that have been used to analyze this really quite remarkable process – the generation of force and motion from a protein-protein interaction involving the ancillary biochemical reaction of nucleotide hydrolysis.