Disc Error

Studying life is often a matter of peeling back layers, revealing its workings piece by piece like a watchmaker with a pair of pliers. And when human tissues reveal something surprising, researchers often turn to simpler, similar organisms like fruit flies to fill in the gaps. Following their discovery of 'branches' between human sarcomeres – the short stretchy units that make up muscle fibres – a team of muscle biologists turns to the fly for answers. Yet they find altering the proteins involved also creates defects elsewhere in the muscle. Here they use 3D electron microscopy and artificial colours to highlight 'holes' in parts of the fly’s fibres called z-discs that the sarcomeres usually pull against to create tension. Revealing the delicate balances at play in muscle biology, the scientists are now looking for new ways to explore the role of branching in generating muscular forces.

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video from work by Peter T. Ajayi and Prasanna Katti, and colleagues
• Muscle Energetics Laboratory, NHLBI, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, May 2022