Meeting Abstract

P1.75  Saturday, Jan. 4 15:30  How skinning affects passive tension in muscle JENSEN, D*; MONROY, JA; FUQUA, R; NISHIKAWA, K; Northern Arizona Univ. Kiisa.Nishikawa@nau.edu

Skinning is an important method used in muscle physiology and research. Titin (connectin) is a large spring-like protein present in muscles that is responsible for passive force when a muscle is stretched. Skinning removes the muscle’s membrane and allows other molecules to easily diffuse into the muscle. Previous studies suggest that the skinning procedure could degrade titin and affect the passive force of a muscle. Optimizing the skinning protocol could effectively improve how we learn about titin and its different components in active muscle. In this study, the passive force of mouse soleus muscles was measured at different lengths before and after a muscle was skinned. First, passive force was measured in physiological Kreb’s solution. Then, muscles were submerged in a relaxing solution (to prevent rigor mortis) for one hour, followed by a skinning solution for 24 hrs. After the 24 hr skinning period, muscles were placed into another relaxing solution. Again, passive force data were collected. Both sets of passive tension data were analyzed and compared to determine if there was a significant effect of skinning on passive tension. The results from this experiment showed that there was a significant decrease in passive force after the muscles were skinned. This suggests that the skinning solution does affect muscle elasticity and may have degraded some of the titin protein. This work will improve how we perform and understand how skinning methods affect muscle proteins such as titin. Supported by NSF IOS-1025806.