Evolutionary patterns of intrinsic caudal musculature in ray-finned fishes show that fine control of the dorsal lobe of the tail evolved first, followed by the ability to control the ventral lobe. This progression of increasing differentiation of musculature suggests specialization of caudal muscle roles. Fine control of fin elements is probably responsible for the range of fin conformations ob...

Thyroid hormone (TH) is a universal regulator of growth, development and metabolism during cold exposure in mammals. In zebrafish (Danio rerio), TH regulates locomotor performance and metabolism during cold acclimation. The influence of TH on locomotor performance may be via its effect on metabolism or, as has been shown in mammals, by modulating muscle phenotypes. Our aim was to determine whet...

The Acanthamoeba myosin-IA heavy chain gene encodes a 134-kDa protein with a catalytic domain, three potential light chain binding sites, and a tail with separately folded tail homology (TH) -1, -2, and -3 domains. TH-1 is highly resistant to trypsin digestion despite consisting of 15% lysine and arginine. TH-2/3 is resistant to alpha-chymotrypsin digestion. The peptide link between TH-1 and TH...

In-pond raceway aquaculture (IPRA) is the rational prescription for water eutrophication and improves pond environment, enhancing production quality of fish. This experiment explored growth performances muscle grass carp with stocking densities 32 tail/m3 0.07 tail/m2 in IPRA traditional culture (TPC), respectively. The hepatosomatic index, visceral mass ratio, correction factor were statistica...

Pioglitazone, an insulin-sensitizing, antidiabetic agent, has blood pressure-lowering effects in insulin-resistant hypertensive rats and attenuates growth factor-induced increases of intracellular Ca2+ in rat aortic vascular smooth muscle cells. To determine whether modulation of voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels plays a role in this association, we investigated the effects of pioglitazone on vol...

Intramolecular interaction between myosin heads, blocking key sites involved in actin-binding and ATPase activity, appears to be a critical mechanism for switching off vertebrate smooth-muscle myosin molecules, leading to relaxation. We have tested the hypothesis that this interaction is a general mechanism for switching off myosin II-based motile activity in both muscle and nonmuscle cells. El...

We have been investigating a set of genes, collectively called mups, that are essential to striated body wall muscle cell positioning in Caenorhabditis elegans. Here we report our detailed characterization of the mup-2 locus, which encodes troponin T (TnT). Mutants for a heat-sensitive allele, called mup-2(e2346ts), and for a putative null, called mup-2(up1), are defective for embryonic body wa...

Strain and activity patterns were determined during slow steady swimming (tailbeat frequency 1.5-2.5 Hz) at three locations on the body in the slow myotomal muscle of rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss using sonomicrometry and electromyography. Strain was independent of tailbeat frequency over the range studied and increased significantly from +/-3.3 % l0 at 0.35BL to +/-6 % at 0.65BL, where l0 ...

In most groups of electric fish, the electric organ (EO) derives from striated muscle cells that suppress many muscle phenotypic properties. This phenotypic conversion is recapitulated during regeneration of the tail in the weakly electric fish Sternopygus macrurus. Mature electrocytes, the cells of the electric organ, are considerably larger than the muscle fibers from which they derive, and i...