/ Published May 29, 2015
Two masterpieces of music and literature give us a helpful way to approach the molecular basis of life.
Gazing at the two protein maps of the biceps brachii, commonly known as the biceps muscle, each with roughly one thousand cobalt blue spots of varying sizes and intensities, causes me to start contemplating the fundamental aspects of life. These constellations hold the keys to understanding skeletal muscle sexual dimorphism, the distinct molecular differences between males and females of a species. But how can such static maps inform the dynamics of the living state? How can they elucidate the interactions inherent within the cells? How can they predict adaptations to change? The answers to these questions shed important light on our understanding of life itself.
The study of muscle molecular physiology and the nature of its survival mechanisms subsequent to reparable damaging exercise have occupied the work in my lab for decades (for a further description, see this Insight article). Understanding the intricate systems whereby the human body adapts to environmental stressors and repairs itself requires multiple approaches, as well as evolving analytical techniques. Why are our muscles sore 36 hours following an unaccustomed exercise and yet are repaired within a week?
In contemplating this intellectual challenge, two masterpieces have helped inform my studies: Johann Sebastian Bach’s Die Kunst der Fuge and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. They approach the dynamic analysis of the musical form known as the fugue, in which a theme is used as the sole source of ideas for an entire work, by exhausting all the possibilities of musical counterpoint and the awesome and multilayered world of the sea, both methodically, yet with personal freedom of execution. They are didactic works that delve into their subjects so deeply that we can marvel at their clarity of exposition, all the while creating ineffable beauty on their journeys to strive to understand the human condition. These two works inspire me to think through analytical possibilities of my scientific research with a similar sense of passion and determination. And it is this passion and determination for scientific inquiry that I seek to inspire in my students.
To understand exercise-induced damage and repair and their gender specificities as integrated systems, one needs to ponder what has been created and how changeable it is. We need to consider multiple approaches and ways of thinking and data gathering—the transcriptome, proteome, interactome and metabolome (all the RNA transcripts of the expressed genes, the proteins encoded by the transcripts, the protein-protein interactions and the small molecules required for metabolism)—and analyses for the millions of molecules and interactions in the system and how they change with time. The questions are all encompassing. “Or is it, that as an essence, whiteness is not so much a color as a visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors?” as it was so eloquently stated in Moby Dick.
Cataloguing the parts cannot predict the final emergent properties, but gleaning varying approaches from great masters helps us to understand ways of thinking about the beauty that is the cell.
Stylianos Scordilis is a professor of biological sciences.
