Searching for the origin of muscles

Ulrich Technau from the University of Vienna has addressed the origin of musculature. His analysis reveals for the first time that some central components of muscles of higher animals are much older than previously assumed. These results, now published in the renowned journal Nature, indicate that muscle-like cell contraction originated already very early during animal evolution, while the specialization of basal muscle cell types, such as striated muscles, occurred only later and several times independently.

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