Sliding filament theory - The sliding filament theory explains the mechanism of muscle contraction based on muscle proteins that slide past each other to generate movement. According to the sliding filament theory, the myosin (thick) filaments of muscle fibers slide past the actin (thin)filaments during muscle contraction, while the two groups of filaments remain at relatively constant length. Before the 1950s there were several competing theories on muscle contraction, including electrical attraction, protein folding, and protein modification. The novel theory directly introduced a new concept called cross-bridge theory (classically swinging cross-bridge, now mostly referred to as cross-bridge cycle) which explains the molecular mechanism of sliding filament. Cross-bridge theory states that actin and myosin form a protein complex (classically called actomyosin) by attachment of myosin head on the actin filament, thereby forming a sort of cross-bridge between the two filaments. These two complementary hypotheses turned out to be the correct description, and became a universally accepted explanation of the mechanism of muscle movement.

The sliding filament theory was born from two consecutive papers published on the 22 May 1954 issue of Nature under the common theme "Structural Changes in Muscle During Contraction". Though their conclusions were fundamentally similar, their underlying experimental data and propositions were different.

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