Models and measurements of myriad molecular motors in muscle -- new directions in force generation.

mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"">All muscles generate force by converting chemical energy into mechanical work.  They do so via protein enzymes (myosin molecules)  that undergo conformational changes upon release of stored energy.  How they change shape and how they interact with each other via elastic or viscous coupling mechanisms remains an open problem in biophysical analyses of force generation by systems of molecular motors.  And, intriguingly, we have neglected the potential for force generation in multiple dimensions.  To address these issues, we combine computational models of interacting molecular motors with force measurement at the whole muscle level.  Additional we use high speed, time-resolved, small angle x-ray diffraction to reveal real-time dynamics of the molecular players associated with force generation and energy storage.