Behind every heartbeat is the sarcomere, a microscopic structure inside each heart cell that ignites the contraction. Now, researchers have found a protein called BAG3 may be responsible for sarcomere ...

Setting out to identify all proteins that make up the sarcomere, the basic contractile unit of muscle cells, resulted in an unexpected revelation, providing experimental evidence that helps explain a ...

A team of scientists from Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine have discovered a critical component for renewing the heart's molecular motor, which breaks down in heart failure.

The human heart, often described as the body's engine, is a remarkable organ that tirelessly beats to keep us alive. At the core of this vital organ, intricate processes occur when it contracts, where ...

Scientists have produced the first high-resolution 3D image of the sarcomere, the basic contractile unit of skeletal and heart muscle cells, using electron cryo-tomography (cryo-ET). The international ...

When a muscle contracts, the parts of a sarcomere "shorten" and come closer together. Each cardiac muscle cell can have over 5,000 sarcomeres, which compounds both the shortening and relaxation events ...

Thick filament structure in the relaxed cardiac sarcomere. The upper image shows a tomographic slice of a cardiac sarcomere. Thin filaments are marked with a green and thick filaments with a purple ...

Atrial fibrillation, heart failure and stroke – hypertrophic cardiomyopathy can lead to many serious health conditions and is a major cause of sudden cardiac death in people younger than 35. „The ...