Distilled water-induced contractions in dehydrated and skinned muscle fibers

Dehydrated frog skeletal muscle fibers, prepared by simply immersing the muscle fibers in pure glycerol for 2-3 min, showed a marked sustained tension development in response to distilled water (DW). Similar DW-induced tension responses were also seen in mechanically skinned muscle fibers. The DW-induced mechanical responses were rapidly relaxed by a conventional relaxing solution. The marked reproducibility of the DW-induced responses, together with the simplicity of the dehydration procedure, indicates that the dehydrated fibers can be used as a substitute for the skinned fibers in studying the mechanism of contraction.