The Croonian Lecture, 1979: Regulation of muscle contraction

In this lecture I review briefly the history of the recognition of calcium ion as the sole regulatory factor of muscle contraction at the molecular level and how this led to the discovery of the troponin-tropomyosin system, which is the regulatory system of striated muscles of almost all deuterostomias and some protostomias. This is followed by a brief comment on the myosin-linked regulation, which plays a dominating role in many protostomian muscles. The regulatory mechanism in vertebrate smooth muscle is then discussed; the view is advanced that the leiotonin-tropomyosin system may be the only regulatory device for this muscle. Ca-binding components of troponin and smooth muscles of vertebrates are compared with modulator protein, an omnipresent Ca-binding protein of very conservative nature throughout evolution. Finally, the modes of action of Ca ion in different kinds of cell motility are discussed from an evolutionary point of view.