Hind A. AL-Khayat

Myosin Head Configuration in Relaxed Insect Flight Muscle: X-Ray Modeled Resting Cross-Bridges in a Pre-Powerstroke State Are Poised for Actin Binding

Low-angle x-ray diffraction patterns from relaxed insect flight muscle recorded on the BioCAT beamline at the Argonne APS have been modeled to 6.5 nm resolution (R-factor 9.7%, 65 reflections) using the known myosin head atomic coordinates, a hinge between the motor (catalytic) domain and the light chain-binding (neck) region (lever arm), together with a simulated annealing procedure. The best head conformation angles around the hinge gave a head shape that was close to that typical of relaxed M*ADP*Pi heads, a head shape never before demonstrated in intact muscle. The best packing constrained the eight heads per crown within a compact crown shelf projecting at approximately 90 degrees to the filament axis. The two heads of each myosin molecule assume nonequivalent positions, one head projecting outward while the other curves round the thick filament surface to nose against the proximal neck of the projecting head of the neighboring molecule. The projecting heads immediately suggest a possible cross-bridge cycle. The relaxed projecting head, oriented almost as needed for actin attachment, will attach, then release Pi followed by ADP, as the lever arm with a purely axial change in tilt drives approximately 10 nm of actin filament sliding on the way to the nucleotide-free limit of its working stroke. The overall arrangement appears well designed to support precision cycling for the myogenic oscillatory mode of contraction with its enhanced stretch-activation response used in flight by insects equipped with asynchronous fibrillar flight muscles.

Atomic model of the human cardiac muscle myosin filament

Of all the myosin filaments in muscle, the most important in terms of human health, and so far the least studied, are those in the human heart. Here we report a 3D single-particle analysis of electron micrograph images of negatively stained myosin filaments isolated from human cardiac muscle in the normal (undiseased) relaxed state. The resulting 28-Å resolution 3D reconstruction shows axial and azimuthal (no radial) myosin head perturbations within the 429-Å axial repeat, with rotations between successive 132 Å-, 148 Å-, and 149 Å-spaced crowns of heads close to 60°, 35°, and 25° (all would be 40° in an unperturbed three-stranded helix). We have defined the myosin head atomic arrangements within the three crown levels and have modeled the organization of myosin subfragment 2 and the possible locations of the 39 Å-spaced domains of titin and the cardiac isoform of myosin-binding protein-C on the surface of the myosin filament backbone. Best fits were obtained with head conformations on all crowns close to the structure of the two-headed myosin molecule of vertebrate chicken smooth muscle in the dephosphorylated relaxed state. Individual crowns show differences in head-pair tilts and subfragment 2 orientations, which, together with the observed perturbations, result in different intercrown head interactions, including one not reported before. Analysis of the interactions between the myosin heads, the cardiac isoform of myosin-binding protein-C, and titin will aid in understanding of the structural effects of mutations in these proteins known to be associated with human cardiomyopathies.

Molecular architecture in muscle contractile assemblies

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the major muscle components, the actin and myosin filaments; and it also presents a third set of filaments, the titin filaments, which have remarkable properties and play a central role in integrating the sarcomere structure. The chapter further describes the way these filaments are organized in the muscle repeating unit, the sarcomere, through the cross-linking M-band and Z-band structures. The muscle sarcomere contains the principal contractile proteins, myosin and actin, which on their own can produce force and movement, together with a number of cytoskeletal and regulatory proteins. In a cross-section through the A-bands of vertebrate striated muscles, the myosin filaments lie on a hexagonal lattice, and the actin filaments are at the trigonal points, midway between three mutually adjacent myosin filaments. Vertebrate striated muscle sarcomeres contain two remarkable molecular rulers. One of these is titin, which runs from the Z-band to the M-band and provides the sarcomere with mechanical continuity. The other is nebulin, which is an I-band protein anchored in the Z-band.

Myosin filament 3D structure in mammalian cardiac muscle

A number of cardiac myopathies (e.g. familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and dilated cardiomyopathy) are linked to mutations in cardiac muscle myosin filament proteins, including myosin and myosin binding protein C (MyBP-C). To understand the myopathies it is necessary to know the normal 3D structure of these filaments. We have carried out 3D single particle analysis of electron micrograph images of negatively stained isolated myosin filaments from rabbit cardiac muscle. Single filament images were aligned and divided into segments about 2 × 430 Å long, each of which was treated as an independent ‘particle’. The resulting 40 Å resolution 3D reconstruction showed both axial and azimuthal (no radial) myosin head perturbations within the 430 Å repeat, with successive crown rotations of approximately 60°, 60° and 0°, rather than the regular 40° for an unperturbed helix. However, it is shown that the projecting density peaks appear to start at low radius from origins closer to those expected for an unperturbed helical filament, and that the azimuthal perturbation especially increases with radius. The head arrangements in rabbit cardiac myosin filaments are very similar to those in fish skeletal muscle myosin filaments, suggesting a possible general structural theme for myosin filaments in all vertebrate striated muscles (skeletal and cardiac).

The CCP13 FibreFix program suite: Semi-automated analysis of diffraction patterns from non-crystalline materials

FibreFix integrates various programs for the analysis of non-crystalline diffraction patterns into a single user-friendly package. The main features of FibreFix are outlined and some of its applications are illustrated.

The 7-stranded structure of relaxed scallop muscle myosin filaments: support for a common head configuration in myosin-regulated muscles

Isolated relaxed myosin filaments from the myosin-regulated scallop striated adductor muscle have been reconstructed using electron microscopy and single particle analysis of negatively stained filaments. Three-dimensional reconstruction using 7-fold rotational symmetry but without imposed helical symmetry confirmed that the myosin head array is a 7-stranded, right-handed long-pitch 24/1 helix (or left-handed short-pitch 10/1 helix) with the whole structure having an axial repeat of 1440A. Reconstruction using the full helical symmetry revealed details of the myosin head density distribution within the head crowns in the relaxed scallop myosin filament. The resulting density distribution can best be explained by an arrangement in which the two heads from the same myosin molecule interact together within each crown in a compact parallel fashion along the filament axis. The configuration is consistent with the published configuration of the two heads within vertebrate smooth muscle myosin molecules observed in two-dimensional crystals of smooth muscle myosin and in the structure of tarantula myosin filaments. All these three muscle types are myosin-regulated, providing further support for a general motif of intramolecular interacting-heads structure in the relaxed state of myosin-regulated muscles as was proposed earlier by Woodhead et al. [Woodhead, J.L., Zhao, F.-Q., Craig, R., Egelman, E.H., Alamo, L., Padron, R.. 2005. Atomic model of a myosin filament in the relaxed state. Nature 436, 1195-1199]. However, the orientation of the Wendt structure is different from that found by Woodhead in that the outer head projects outwards and the inner head lies closer to the filament backbone, as in earlier work done on the insect flight muscle myosin filaments [AL-Khayat, H.A., Hudson, L., Reedy, M.K., Irving, T.C., Squire, J.M., 2003. Myosin head configuration in relaxed insect flight muscle: X-ray modelled resting crossbridges in a pre-powerstroke state are poised for actin binding. Biophys. J. 85, 1063-1079]. Possible species specific details that may differ between the scallop and the tarantula myosin filaments are also discussed.

Single Particle Analysis: A new approach to solving the 3D structure of myosin filaments

Knowledge of the structure of muscle myosin filaments is essential for a proper understanding of sarcomere structure and how myosin heads interact with the actin filaments to produce force and movement. Two principal methods have been used to define the myosin head arrays in filaments in the relaxed state, namely modelling from low-angle X-ray diffraction data and image processing of electron micrographs of isolated filaments. Analysis of filament images by 3D helical reconstruction, which imposes total helical symmetry on the structure, is very effective in some cases, but it relies on the existence of very highly ordered preparations of straight filaments. Resolutions achieved to date are about 70 Å. Modelling of X-ray diffraction data recorded from whole relaxed fish or insect muscles has also been used as an independent method. Although the resolution of the diffraction data is often also about 70 Å, the effective resolution of the modelling is very much higher than this because additional very high resolution data (e.g. from protein crystallography) is included in the analysis. However, the X-ray diffraction method has to date provided only limited data on non-myosin thick filament proteins such as C-protein and titin and it cannot provide the polarity of the myosin head arrangement. Both the helical reconstruction and X-ray diffraction techniques have advantages and disadvantages, but their disadvantages are avoided in the new approach of single particle analysis of electron micrograph data. Even using the same micrographs as for helical reconstruction, the resolution can be extended by this method to about 50 Å or better. In addition, it is not necessary to assume that the myosin filaments are helical; a significant advantage in the case of vertebrate myosin filaments where there is a known crossbridge perturbation. Here we describe the principles of all these approaches, but particularly that of single particle analysis. We outline the application of single particle analysis to myosin filaments from vertebrate skeletal and insect flight (IFM) muscle myosin filaments.

Zebrafish Cardiac Muscle Thick Filaments: Isolation Technique and Three-Dimensional Structure

To understand how mutations in thick filament proteins such as cardiac myosin binding protein-C or titin, cause familial hypertrophic cardiomyopathies, it is important to determine the structure of the cardiac thick filament. Techniques for the genetic manipulation of the zebrafish are well established and it has become a major model for the study of the cardiovascular system. Our goal is to develop zebrafish as an alternative system to the mammalian heart model for the study of the structure of the cardiac thick filaments and the proteins that form it. We have successfully isolated thick filaments from zebrafish cardiac muscle, using a procedure similar to those for mammalian heart, and analyzed their structure by negative-staining and electron microscopy. The isolated filaments appear well ordered with the characteristic 42.9 nm quasi-helical repeat of the myosin heads expected from x-ray diffraction. We have performed single particle image analysis on the collected electron microscopy images for the C-zone region of these filaments and obtained a three-dimensional reconstruction at 3.5 nm resolution. This reconstruction reveals structure similar to the mammalian thick filament, and demonstrates that zebrafish may provide a useful model for the study of the changes in the cardiac thick filament associated with disease processes.

X-ray Diffraction Studies of Striated Muscles

In this short review a number of recent X-ray diffraction results on the highly ordered striated muscles in insects and in bony fish have been briefly described. What is clear is that this technique applied to muscles which are amenable to rigorous analysis, taken together with related data from other sources (e.g. protein crystallography, biochemistry, mechanics, computer modelling) can provide not only the best descriptions yet available on the myosin head organisations on different myosin filaments in the relaxed state, but can also show the sequence of molecular events that occurs in the contractile cycle, and may also help to explain such phenomena as stretch-activation. X-ray diffraction is clearly an enormously powerful tool in studies of muscle. It has already provided a wealth of detail on muscle ultrastructure; it is providing ever more fascinating insights into molecular events in the 50-year old sliding filament mechanism, and there remains a great deal more potential that is as yet untapped.

Three-dimensional structure of the M-region (bare zone) of vertebrate striated muscle myosin filaments by single-particle analysis

The rods of anti-parallel myosin molecules overlap at the centre of bipolar myosin filaments to produce an M-region (bare zone) that is free of myosin heads. Beyond the M-region edges, myosin molecules aggregate in a parallel fashion to yield the bridge regions of the myosin filaments. Adjacent myosin filaments in striated muscle A-bands are cross-linked by the M-band. Vertebrate striated muscle myosin filaments have a 3-fold rotational symmetry around their long axes. In addition, at the centre of the M-region, there are three 2-fold axes perpendicular to the filament long axis, giving the whole filament dihedral 32-point group symmetry. Here we describe the three-dimensional structure obtained by a single-particle analysis of the M-region of myosin filaments from goldfish skeletal muscle under relaxing conditions and as viewed in negative stain. This is the first single-particle reconstruction of isolated M-regions. The resulting three-dimensional reconstruction reveals details to about 55 Å resolution of the density distribution in the five main nonmyosin densities in the M-band (M6′, M4′, M1, M4 and M6) and in the myosin head crowns (P1, P2 and P3) at the M-region edges. The outermost crowns in the reconstruction were identified specifically by their close similarity to the corresponding crown levels in our previously published bridge region reconstructions. The packing of myosin molecules into the M-region structure is discussed, and some unidentified densities are highlighted.