Measuring myosin cross-bridge attachment time in activated muscle fibers using stochastic vs. sinusoidal length perturbation analysis

The average time myosin cross bridges remain bound to actin (t(on)) can be measured by sinusoidal length perturbations (sinusoidal analysis) of striated muscle fibers using recently developed analytic methods. This approach allows measurements of t(on) in preparations possessing a physiologically relevant myofilament lattice. In this study, we developed an approach to measure t(on) in 5-10% of the time required for sinusoidal analysis by using stochastic length perturbations (white noise analysis). To compare these methods, we measured the influence of MgATP concentration ([MgATP]) on t(on) in demembranated myocardial strips from mice, sampling muscle behavior from 0.125 to 200 Hz with a 20-s burst of white noise vs. a 300-s series of sinusoids. Both methods detected a similar >300% increase in t(on) as [MgATP] decreased from 5 to 0.25 mM, differing by only 3-14% at any [MgATP]. Additional experiments with Drosophila indirect flight muscle fibers demonstrated that faster cross-bridge cycling kinetics permit further reducing of the perturbation time required to measure t(on). This reduced sampling time allowed strain-dependent measurements of t(on) in flight muscle fibers by combining 10-s bursts of white noise during periods of linear shortening and lengthening. Analyses revealed longer t(on) values during shortening and shorter t(on) values during lengthening. This asymmetry may provide a mechanism that contributes to oscillatory energy transfer between the flight muscles and thoracic cuticle to power flight. This study demonstrates that white noise analysis can detect underlying molecular processes associated with dynamic muscle contraction comparable to sinusoidal analysis, but in a fraction of the time.