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Review

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology 4, 679–689 (1 September 2003) | doi:10.1038/nrm1198

Titin: properties and family relationships

Larissa Tskhovrebova & John Trinick

In striated muscles, the rapid production of macroscopic levels of force and displacement stems directly from highly ordered and hierarchical protein organization, with the sarcomere as the elemental contractile unit. There is now a wealth of evidence indicating that the giant elastic protein titin has important roles in controlling the structure and extensibility of vertebrate muscle sarcomeres.