I. Rayment, H.M. Holden, M. Whittaker, C.B. Yohn, M. Lorenz. K.C. Holmes, R.A. Milligan, "Structure of the actin-myosin complex and its implications for muscle contraction," Science, 261:58-65, 1993. (Total citations through October 1994: 76)
In the first of this pair of papers, Ivan Rayment, Hazel Holden, and their colleagues at the University of Wisconsin's Institute for Enzyme Research in Madison describe the structure of the muscle protein myosin. The reason this paper is so important to many other researchers, says Rayment, is that the "three-dimensional structure [of myosin] gives a molecular framework that is essential for understanding how [the molecule] works.
"There is an enormous interest in the way that muscles contract and a vast amount of literature on this subject. In this paper we have actually described the three-dimensional configuration of the motor domain of the protein." Perhaps one of the most intriguing problems in fundamental biology is the ...
