ABSTRACT
In the 1960s to 1980s, it was generally thought that radial forces between the myofilaments did not exist. Only a few authors suggested that weak electrostatic repulsive forces and weak van der Waals-London attractive forces ensured the equilibrium of the filament lattice. I demonstrate, in this book, especially throughout Section 4.4 and Chapter 5, that radial repulsive electrostatic, tethering, collapsing and attractive/compressive forces are exerted between the thick myosin and thin actin filaments and play major roles in resting and contracting muscle fibres. Most of the authors cited in this section were unaware of these roles, leading to weaknesses in their argumentation. Introducing these forces here, the new discussion does not exactly fit the previous interpretations, which were very simple. However, the ‘old’ experimental data remain very informative and support, in particular, the existence of strong net radial repulsive forces between the myofilaments.
