Muscle Cell Function Laboratory - Honours projects available in 2010

An Honours project undertaken in this lab would be administered by the Discipline of Physiology.

The Muscle Cell Function laboratory is concerned with the regulation of calcium and other ions in cardiac and skeletal muscle cells.

1. Muscle fatigue

Supervisor + contact details:

• Professor David G Allen

The lab is developing a new approach to studying muscle fatigue which involves fatiguing whole muscles in the anaesthetized mouse. The advantage of this approach is that the muscles are intact and have their normal blood supply. The long term aim is to use genetically encoded calcium sensors (cameleons) to measure intracellular calcium which will await the arrival of the new multiphoton confocal microscope (early 2010). Immediate aims are to compare fatigue in this preparation with isolated preparations and develop methods for measuring metabolic changes. Another approach will be to compare isometric contractions with shortening contractions.

2. Pacemaker function in the heart

Supervisor + contact details:

• Professor David G Allen

We previously demonstrate that intracellular Ca²⁺ plays an important role in cardiac pacemaking. Recently we have discovered a store-operated Ca²⁺ channel in sinoatrial node of the heart. The present project will measure Ca²⁺ influx through store-operated Ca²⁺ channels in the mouse sinoatrial node and investigate signalling pathways that might be involved in modulation of the channel activity. This investigation of the role of store-operated Ca²⁺ channels in the heart will improve our understanding of mechanism of heart beat as well as its involvement in cardiac arrhythmias.