Smooth muscle cells line the walls of every blood vessel. It is their contractile function that is critical to the control of blood pressure and when altered leads to diseases such as hypertension. At the molecular level, smooth muscle contraction is the result of the myosin molecular motor and its cyclic interaction with actin, a process powered by myosin's hydrolysis of ATP. Smooth muscle myosin is distinguished from the striated muscle myosins by its myosin phosphorylation-dependent regulation and force maintenance with little energy (i.e. ATP) expenditure. This proposal will investigate how smooth muscle myosin's molecular structure defines its mechanical performance. We will combine the power of structural mutagenesis through the use of the Baculovirus expression system with state-of-the-art single molecule biophysical techniques such as the laser trap to assess how myosin's double-headed structure contributes to phosphorylation-dependent regulation. In addition, mutant myosins will be designed that will help characterize the role of each of smooth muscle myosin's two heads in generating maximal force and motion. All muscles respond to load by varying their speed of shortening. Therefore, we will identify the structural domains within the smooth muscle myosin molecule that sense load and how load modulates the various steps of myosin's hydrolysis of ATP. Our initial focus will be on the myosin converter and lever arm domains. We will also take advantage of naturally occurring isoforms found in tonic (e.g. blood vessels) and phasic (e.g. intestine) smooth muscles, which have dramatically different contractile properties but with slight differences in their molecular structure. The differences are specifically a 7-amino acid insert in the myosin head and two essential light chain isoforms. These myosins will be characterized by applying load to single smooth muscle myosin molecules using a novel laser trap force clamp assay. The proposed experiments will provide insight to smooth muscle's ability to maintain vascular tone with little energy expenditure. Since the myosin molecular motor is found in every smooth muscle cell and shares significant similarities to other muscle myosins, understanding smooth muscle myosins molecular structure and function will impact not only how we may treat diseases of the vasculature but cardiomyopathies as well.
