The use of synchrotron radiation in time-resolved X-ray diffraction studies of myosin layer-line reflections during muscle contraction

Experiments on striated muscle have been carried out at the EMBL Outstation at DESY, Hamburg, using the electron-positron storage ring DORIS as a high-intensity X-ray source. The low-angle reflections from the myosin cross-bridges could be recorded more than 1,000 times more rapidly than with the best conventional X-ray sources, and could be followed during contraction with a time resolution of 10 ms.