"Refolding" muscle proteins [closed]

Question

How does this concept check out?.

A genetically-altered (i.e. raised from birth) human with muscle proteins that have been developed, "folded" (i.e. the way muscle fibers interact with one another), structured or otherwise modified to be more effective while retaining the same density. Therefore, they're proportionately stronger than a baseline human while not having any increase in muscle mass.

Answer 1

I don't really understand what kind of answers do you want to get asking

How does this concept checks out.

Anyway I will try to explain what I think about reliably of such concept. First, consider the efficiency of human muscle is rather low, 18-26%. It is caused by several factors i.a. losses in converting energy from food into ATP, loses in converting energy from ATP into muscle contraction and other mechanical loses. Those factors depends on the type of muscle fibers, their structure and so on.

So I can see at least two possible factors that could potentially be improved, perhaps by developed enough genetic technology

One is type and structure of muscle fibers. The rather 'easy' thing to improve would be to improve ratio of fast-twitch vs slow-twitch fibers to be optimal for specific kind of muscle responsible for specific type movement. More difficult, but still something that I consider believable or doable with appropriate technology would be to develop different, better, more efficient type of muscle fibers.

Second one is usage of alternative energy provider. So imagine developing muscles that uses some more efficient energy provider than ATP. This is something that I consider much more difficult (therefore you as a storyteller would have much more work to convenience reader its reasonable) but still possible to imagine.

BTW I don't think @DWKraus is right in this comment, because in general evolution in most cases does not develop optimal solution. Natural selection usually promotes greedy solutions. It is usually rather a local optimum which means that there might be significantly better solutions that simply could not be developed because small improvement of existing ones was a better adaptation to environment.

So to summarize. I consider this kind of concept pretty rational and believable in science-fiction world.

Answer 2

Far easier to just to alter the variant of the myostatin gene inherited by the person/s concerned. But beware the side effects

Muscle mass in mammals appears (in part at least) to be strongly determined by this one gene which controls the amount of a compound called (appropriately) mysostatin the body produces. With apologies to biochemists everywhere the presence of this protein inhibits muscle cell growth i.e the higher the level of the myostatin in your blood stream the less muscle mass you develop.

You could in theory alter the version of the human gene concerned to get the effect you want. (Although there will also be a small number of other genes operating either in 'tandem' with it or more likely 'downhill' from it [in metabolic terms] that you would probably want to look at as well.) Either way in theory the genetic tweaks involved are a lot simpler than many others that have been suggested or asked bout on this forum.

There are also drugs called myostatin inhibitors that do exactly what the name implies. So these also boost muscle mass if you don't want to do down the genetic engineering path. Just don't consider a career in professional sports if you do use them.

Wikipedia has a short summery of the issues around this gene/protein.

Answer 3

Better For What?

Understanding the question a little better, I think the question comes down to this: What do you want those muscles to do? Beware magical fixes in biology. It is almost never a simple case that something different is simply "better." Inevitably, there are trade-offs. These can be predictable or they can be complete surprises. The surprises are even more likely if they are the first generation of people with these enhancements.

Biologically, it's a loaded statement to call something better. You need to be very specific when doing so, defining how and why a given thing would be better than another. So when talking about better muscles, we need to understand the consequences of muscles being stronger per unit of volume and mass.

• Bone anchors for muscle will need to change to compensate for a greater amount of force /then the corresponding bones will need to be reimagined. You might need the person to have shorter limbs to compensate due to the greater force per length of bone. Or, the bones might need to be denser or made of different materials. Otherwise Your person could break bones when punching through doors or lifting cars.
• More efficient engineered muscles are going to operate differently. The most likely scenario is that the muscles will operate more slowly. They will deliver lots of force, but reaction times might be considerably lower. So super strong person might be a slowpoke.
• Your muscles might potentially have higher requirements for nutrients and oxygen. The cells might need larger storage of these to make the greater power work. There might need to be more vascularization to supply the extra nutrients to the muscles, or the person could end up becoming rapidly fatigued.
• If your muscles are optimized for delivering force per unit volume, they might be inefficient at delivering force per unit time. Gorillas are able to perform great feats of strength, even with equivalent muscles. Humans have some of this ability in the form of hysterical strength But their ability to perform repetitive task is significantly reduced. Humans are endurance hunters and apply their strength over time to achieving endurance tasks. This means they can work all day and still function. It would be embarrassing for your hero to be constantly napping, getting exhausted after taking walks, etc.
• Your muscles might be less efficient users of calories. the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn just being alive. The same muscles are exerting far more strength to do totally routine things because they are using more energy for everything. I would suspect your enhanced individual will likely burn a ton of calories while sitting around. They'll probably also use more oxygen. And at the same time, a small person producing huge amounts of heat from extremely powerful muscles will potentially be constantly hot and prone to heat stroke.
• The differences in size, muscle function, muscle layout, vascularization, color, and bone structure could all add up to your person looking distinctly different from normal people. I imagine a hyperventilating wiry dwarf who is constantly perspiring, who looks like they have varicose veins covering their distinctly reddish or bluish muscles and is constantly snacking on everything is sight.

So consider that there will likely be consequences for any extraordinary advantage one organism has over another. It's not likely to simply be a case of "The muscles just work better."