Nanothermometry Measure of Muscle Efficiency.

Despite recent advances in thermometry, determination of temperature at the nanometer scale in single molecules to live cells remains a challenge that holds great promise in disease detection among others. In the present study, we use a new approach to nanometer scale thermometry with a spatial and thermal resolution of 80 nm and 1 mK respectively, by directly associating 2 nm cadmium telluride quantum dots (CdTe QDs) to the subject under study. The 2 nm CdTe QDs physically adhered to bovine cardiac and rabbit skeletal muscle myosin, enabling the determination of heat released when ATP is hydrolyzed by both myosin motors. Greater heat loss reflects less work performed by the motor, hence decreased efficiency. Surprisingly, we found rabbit skeletal myosin to be more efficient than bovine cardiac. We have further extended this approach to demonstrate the gain in efficiency of Drosophila melanogaster skeletal muscle overexpressing the PGC-1α homologue spargel, a known mediator of improved exercise performance in humans. Our results establish a novel approach to determine muscle efficiency with promise for early diagnosis and treatment of various metabolic disorders including cancer.

Phosphate enhances myosin-powered actin filament velocity under acidic conditions in a motility assay.

Elevated levels of inorganic phosphate (P(i)) are believed to inhibit muscular force by reversing myosin's force-generating step. These same levels of P(i) can also affect muscle velocity, but the molecular basis underlying these effects remains unclear. We directly examined the effect of P(i) (30 mM) on skeletal muscle myosin's ability to translocate actin (V(actin)) in an in vitro motility assay. Manipulation of the pH enabled us to probe rebinding of P(i) to myosin's ADP-bound state, while changing the ATP concentration probed rebinding to the rigor state. Surprisingly, the addition of P(i) significantly increased V(actin) at both pH 6.8 and 6.5, causing a doubling of V(actin) at pH 6.5. To probe the mechanisms underlying this increase in speed, we repeated these experiments while varying the ATP concentration. At pH 7.4, the effects of P(i) were highly ATP dependent, with P(i) slowing V(actin) at low ATP (<500 µM), but with a minor increase at 2 mM ATP. The P(i)-induced slowing of V(actin), evident at low ATP (pH 7.4), was minimized at pH 6.8 and completely reversed at pH 6.5. These data were accurately fit with a simple detachment-limited kinetic model of motility that incorporated a P(i)-induced prolongation of the rigor state, which accounted for the slowing of V(actin) at low ATP, and a P(i)-induced detachment from a strongly bound post-power-stroke state, which accounted for the increase in V(actin) at high ATP. These findings suggest that P(i) differentially affects myosin function: enhancing velocity, if it rebinds to the ADP-bound state, while slowing velocity, if it binds to the rigor state.