The Mechanism of the Skeletal Muscle Myosin ATPase

A major question about the mechanism of the myosin ATPase is how much of the fluorescence change which accompanies the binding of ATP to myosin is due to the conformational change induced by ATP and how much is due to the subsequent hydrolysis of ATP in the initial Pi burst. Several laboratories have suggested that the maximal rate of the fluorescence change represents the rate of the irreversible conformational change induced by ATP. In the present study, the rate of irreversible ATP binding, the rate of the initial Pi burst, and the rate of the fluorescence enhancement were compared under varied conditions. The results show that: 1) the fluorescence enhancement is mainly due to the hydrolysis of ATP in the initial Pi burst rather than to the conformational change induced by the binding of ATP; 2) the rate of the initial Pi burst is considerably slower than the rate of irreversible ATP binding at high ATP concentration; 3) the rate of the initial Pi burst is almost the same as the rate of the fluorescence enhancement. Therefore, the maximum rate of the fluorescence enhancement represents the rate of the initial Pi burst rather than the rate of the conformational change induced by ATP binding.