Have you ever wondered which muscle is the strongest? Depending on a muscle’s function, it can have different levels of performance. Muscle performance can be quantified by measuring several different characteristics, such as time between muscle twitches, contraction velocities, and muscle curvature. Previous work in quantifying these values in jaw and leg muscles in three species of anoles led to questions about what gene functions these different functioning muscles regulate. Andrea Liebl with the University of South Dakota, along with colleagues at the University of Iowa and Brown University, addressed this question. She did this by working to identify candidate genes that may be involved in creating the functional differences seen between jaw muscles involved in biting and leg muscles involved in locomotion.

After using a PCoA Analysis that showed distinct clustering of different gene expression between the two muscles, they were able to find differences in specific genes and their expression in the two muscle types as well. Genes that differed in expression were classified and placed in groups based on function that may play a role in muscle performance. Genes that regulate energy for the cell such as those involved in ATP synthesis and mitochondria were found to differ in expression in the jaw and leg muscles, as well as genes involved in muscle structure, contraction, and activity. These findings allow for further work that is currently being done to address differences in gene expression among four species of anoles. This study along with further work gives great insight into what differences in muscle physiology leads to specific muscle performance as well as whole organism performance.

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