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. 2002 Aug;83(2):1074–1081. doi: 10.1016/S0006-3495(02)75231-4

Direct x-ray observation of a single hexagonal myofilament lattice in native myofibrils of striated muscle.

Hiroyuki Iwamoto 1, Yukihiro Nishikawa 1, Jun'ichi Wakayama 1, Tetsuro Fujisawa 1
PMCID: PMC1302209  PMID: 12124287

Abstract

A striated muscle fiber consists of thousands of myofibrils with crystalline hexagonal myofilament lattices. Because the lattices are randomly oriented, the fiber gives rise to an equatorial x-ray diffraction pattern, which is essentially a rotary-averaged "powder diffraction," carrying only information about the distance between the lattice planes. We were able to record an x-ray diffraction pattern from a single myofilament lattice, very likely originating from a single myofibril from the flight muscle of a bumblebee, by orienting the incident x-ray microbeam along the myofibrillar axis (end-on diffraction). The pattern consisted of a number of hexagonally symmetrical diffraction spots whose originating lattice planes were readily identified. This also held true for some of the weak higher order reflections. The spot-like appearance of reflections implies that the lattice order is extremely well maintained for a distance of millimeters, covering up to a thousand of approximately 2.5-microm-long sarcomeres connected in series. The results open the possibility of applying the x-ray microdiffraction technique to study many other micrometer-sized assemblies of functional biomolecules in the cell.

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Selected References

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