The Drosophila heart, also referred to as the dorsal vessel, pumps the insect blood, the
hemolymph. The bilateral heart primordia develop from the most dorsally located …

The genetic advantages of Drosophila make it a very appealing choice for investigating
muscle development, muscle physiology and muscle protein structure and function. To take …

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), a life-threatening disease characterized by pathological
heart enlargement, can be caused by myosin mutations that reduce contractile function. To …

The interface between relay and converter domain of muscle myosin is critical for optimal
myosin performance. Using Drosophila melanogaster indirect flight muscle S1, we …

Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly) is arguably a superstar of genetics, an astonishing
versatile experimental model which fueled no less than six Nobel prizes in medicine …

An “invariant proline” separates the myosin S1 head from its S2 tail and is proposed to be
critical for orienting S1 during its interaction with actin, a process that leads to muscle …

Intramolecular communication within myosin is essential for its function as motor, but the
specific amino acid residue interactions required are unexplored within muscle cells. Using …

Hereditary myosin myopathies are characterized by variable clinical features. Inclusion body
myopathy 3 (IBM-3) is an autosomal dominant disease associated with a missense mutation …

Myosin isoforms help define muscle-specific contractile and structural properties. Alternative
splicing of myosin heavy chain gene transcripts in Drosophila melanogaster yields muscle …

Biophysical and structural studies on muscle myosin rely upon milligram quantities of
extremely pure material. However, many biologically interesting myosin isoforms are …