Effect of Adenosine Triphosphate on the Light-Scattering of Actomyosin Solution

Abstract

IT is well known that the viscosity¹, the double refraction of flow² and the light-scattering³ of actomyosin solution are changed by the addition of adenosine triphosphate. Many investigators have shown that the course of the viscosity change can be divided into three phases⁴: the viscosity of actomyosin solution drops rapidly after the addition of adenosine triphosphate (first phase), reaches a constant value (second phase) and then recovers gradually (third phase). But the measurement of viscosity is not considered to be suitable for the kinetic analysis of these changes, because it takes twenty to thirty seconds for each determination, while the whole change is completed within a few minutes. Therefore theories hitherto suggested for explaining the mechanisms of these phenomena have little experimental support.