Muscles: What makes
them strong?
Campbell University: Department of Biological Sciences
Samantha Rodriguez, Garrett Stang, Emily Stallings
Dr. Karen Guzman
Would you rather have one
strongman or many weak men?
Would you believe that even very strong muscles are made
up of molecules that are largely held together by many weak
interactions?
Interactions are important…
 Atoms in water are held together by strong bonds:
Shake the water molecule. Does it come apart?
 Water molecules in a glass are held together by weak
bonds: Shake 2 water molecules. Do they come apart?
 Compare interactions between water, alcohol and
ethane.
Actually a combination of weak
and strong interactions are
important…
 Explore the molecules of life…
 Where can you find strong interactions?
 Where can you find weak interactions?
Weak interactions help provide
shape that is critical for
molecules to work right…
 Fold the toober using the rules designated.
 This is how proteins fold, like the muscle protein myosin.
 Weak interactions between amino acids hold them in the
correct shape.
 The many interactions between the amino acids of a
protein allow each protein to fold in a way that they can
do a different job
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