Bioenergetics of Muscle Contraction

The cross-striated muscle is the mechanical energy converter generally used in the animal in kingdom. (The Nobel Laureate Russian physicist, Dr. Kapicza, has estimated that more than half of the mechanical energy utilized on our globe originates from the animal muscle machine). Muscle research has played a prominent role in biological science, starting with Galvani’S famous experiments in 1974 (The first specific monograph about muscle was published in 1882 by A. Fick) [1]. Today the problem of muscle contraction stands in the frontline of physiology, biophysics, biochemistry and molecular biology; for example at the American Biophysical Society meeting in San Francisco, in February 1991, 15 of the 64 symposia dealt with muscle research. Great progress has been achieved over the last decades, thanks to molecular biological methods. Among the many unanswered problems that still exist in the field of muscle science, that of the energetics of muscle contraction is the most complex one.