Scientific Instruments Heidelberg

The Muscle Research System OPT is primarily designed for advanced optical measurements on skinned muscle fibers under good mechanical control. The system has a greater mechanical stability and can be equipped with photometers, laser diode, linear motors and very sensitive force transducers. It can also be used for intact muscle studies. We recommend that this system be placed on a vibration isolation table or platform.

KEY FEATURES:

• Mechanically very stable platform for advanced muscle studies
• Complete turnkey system with data recording & analysis available
• Expandable with linear motor for muscle length perturbation studies
• Expandable with FLASH Photolysis unit
• Expandable with automated Gradient maker
• Expandable with a laser diode for sarcomere spacing studies
• Expandable in the future due to its modular design

KEY EXPERIMENTS / MUSCLE Parameters:

1)      Measure muscle ATPactivity in thin muscle strips (or single skeletal muscle cells). The time resolution of the ATPase determination  depends on the muscle and is within 5 to 20s
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2)      A linear motor plus control units can be adapted to measure mechanical muscle properties such as Slack-test, Isotonic release, Constant velocity release, Stretch release, vibration. background information

3)      A gradient maker can be adapted for automated force-pCA studies
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4)      Simultaneous measurement of the Sarcomere length is possible by laser diode diffraction. This can be combined with calcium measurement
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Instrument Control can be via hardware (Motor Action Control Panel) so you can use your own data acquisition system and software; or via our integrated package (DAS/MuscleData/Gradient), it will control all hardware and will record all muscle data and optical recordings.

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