Thin Filament-Reconstituted Skinned Muscle Fibers for the Study of Muscle Physiology

We review the use of thin filament-reconstituted muscle fibers in the study of muscle physiology. Thin filament extraction and reconstitution protocol is a powerful technique to study the role of each component of the thin filament. It is also useful for studying the properties of genetically modified molecules such as actin and tropomyosin. We also review the combination of this protocol with sinusoidal analysis, which will provide a solid technique for determining the effect of regulatory proteins on actomyosin interaction and concomitant cross-bridge kinetics. We suggest that thin filament-reconstituted muscle fibers are an ideal system for studying muscle physiology especially when gene modifications of actin or tropomyosin are involved.