Actomyosin and muscle contraction (Szeged)
Actomiosina y contracción muscular (Szeged)
- Date
- 1941-1942 · confidence high
- Place
- Szeged, Csongrád-Csanád, Hungary
- Credited to
- Albert Szent-Györgyi and Ferenc Brunó Straub
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
At the Szeged laboratory actin was separated from myosin and actomyosin threads were shown to contract on adding ATP. It was the first biochemical model of muscle contraction.
Actin was discovered by Straub, a collaborator of Szent-Györgyi, in 1942. Szent-Györgyi had received the 1937 Nobel Prize for vitamin C and cellular oxidation processes.
What it led to
- the sliding-filament theory (Huxley, 1954)
- muscle energetics and the role of ATP
- molecular biology of cell motility