Recent Advances in Muscle Research

Muscle, a tissue that accounts for about forty per cent of the weight of the human body, has been studied from the gross anatomical level down to the atomic level. Sir William Bowman, a pioneer in early muscle studies, summed up some of the difficulties in studying skeletal muscle cells in 1843 in his famous text book entitled The Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man: “The beautiful cross-markings of the voluntary fibre have been known from the early days of microscopical research, and have given occasion to a variety of hypothetical and generally mechanical solutions of the problem of contraction; which by warping the minds of observers, have had the effects of greatly complicating an already difficult subject, that of the internal anatomy of the fibre, which can only be determined by pure observation. ” Many technological advances since then have provided a detailed view of muscle structure and function. Recent progress in these areas is reviewed in this special issue of The Anatomical Record. The topics cover, in addition to vertebrate muscles, also those of model organisms, e. g. , the worm or nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and the fly Drosophila melanogaster. The zebrafish, Danio rerio, more recently has become a model vertebrate organism for muscle studies as well. In 1977, Francis Crick stated in an article for The Encyclopedia of Ignorance: “And how does a muscle fibre assemble all its components to produce a highly ordered contractile machine? The answer may come from studies on the fibrillar molecules themselves and how they interact or it may involve some other principals. ” We are still uncertain how myofibrils are assembled de novo, and how their integrity is maintained over the life spans of animals (Sanger et al. 2005; 2010). Contributions in this special issue are focused on myofibrillar proteins, their interactions, and their involvement in myopathies, as well as on aspects of muscle structure and function and progress in understanding the requirements for the assembly and maintenance of muscle. from 1999 to 2013 a Muscle Special Interest Group has been held as one of the member-organized Special Interest Subgroup sessions that are scheduled on the Saturday afternoon before the official start of the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). The first Special Interest Muscle Session was organized by Professors Thomas Borg and Joseph W. Sanger because they felt that muscle cells biologists needed a venue at the annual meetings where they could present their latest advances in their fields. Drs. Borg and Sanger decided for this first session that the presentations should be of such a length that new data could be thoughtfully presented, and that audience participation could take place. The resultant successful format consisted of a short Introduction followed by eight to nine lectures, each lasting 25 minutes immediately followed by a five minute question or comment period. The Anatomical Record under the editorship of Professor Kurt Albertine sponsored one of the Muscle Special Interest Sessions, and suggested to the two current organizers that the Anatomical Record sponsor a Special Issue on muscle in the journal. All but three of the 22 present authors have presented aspects of their work at some of these 15 annual ASCB Muscle Special Interest Sessions.