Strange but true.

From New Scientist paper edition, 3rd of June 2006, letters page:

Mighty Chimps
From Simon Brinstngl
The article on agression in chimpanzees decribes how adult chimps attacked and overpoewred humans with ease (6 May, p.14). I have read that chimps can be 6 times stronger than humans, though I am unclear what exactly is meant by the quatinifcation: is it weight-for-weight, for example? Are they bigger, more muscular, fitter, or is there something intrinsically different about their muscles?
Given teh similarity of our genomes it would be interesting if small changes in genes or how they are expressed could create such a difference.

The editor replies:
Chimpanzees are different from humans in several obvious ways, one of which is their sheer physical strength. But why are they so much stronger than us?
The answer is not just greater muscle bulk. It is also to do with that fact that their muscles work five to seven times more effeicently than ours. Studies of human and other primates' jaw mascules show that our muscle fibres are far smaller and weaker than those of our cousins - roughly one-eighth the size of those seen in macaques, for example.
The reason for this remains poorly understood, but one contributing factor is in the genes that encode myosin, the protein from which muscle fibres are made. Comparision of human and ape sequences for a myosin gene called MYH16 show that all humans have a mutant version of this gene. Some have even creditied the more diminutive muscles in human jaws for our larger intelligence. One theory says that these smaller muscles gave our skulls more room to grow rounder, allowing for a bigger brain cavity.


Now, this raises an few interesting ideas. The most obvious one is for someone to have a go at using (fairly basic) gene therapy on someone with a muscle wasting disease, and setting them up with the "normal" MYH16 gene. If it doesn't kill them dead, but gives them the ability to lift trucks, then we are in with a good chance of being able to take a shot in the arm that leaves us 6 times stronger!

Now, logically, this could have some issues, such as snapping your own bones due to the added power you can apply, and tendons, etc. would also have issues. However, I think this would be mitigated by the effects of the new gene only causing new muscle built after the therapy to be more powerful. This would mean that huge body builders would not be able to be nearly as strong as those who were skinny to start with, and then worked out.

If this were true, then the rest of the body would have time to adapt itself to the new stresses being applied, and, for instance, your bones would lay down more caluim and become slowly stronger, as your strength increases.

The risks? This treatment might kill you dead, and even if not, it shouldn't be used under the age of 25, when everything has stopped growing. If it changed heart muscle, you might have heart issues, but that is a different type of muscle, so it might not be an issue.

If it was something you simply had to learn to live with, I'd certainly go for it, though. Even just double my strength would be a neat trick. And the upper limit? Well, orangutans don't work out much, but there are reported cases of them picking up fallen trees one handed!

Any biologists out there?

Growth hormone injections would probably solve the issue of bones/tendons snapping. GH tends to be extremely good at increasing the size/density of bones and tendons. Though it's extremely expensive.

In that case, you would really want to go for the treatment as early in life as possible; excess HGH is not, generally speaking, a good thing if you've stopped growing.
On the other hand, growth hormones early in life tend to leave you about 7ft tall and prey to falls, immune deficiencies, anemia, and a whole range of other difficulties irrelevent to someone of normal size. Personally, I think we have a long way to go before anything like this sort of genetic enhancement is anything like practical, let alone widely available.

Retrovirus manipulation and injection is currently our main means for gene therapy. I'm not sure how well a retrovirus would be able to "attack" a muscle cell.

Even after the muscle cell was injected with the mutated genes, it would only be able to replicate the gene through division (working out/strength training).

Basically, I think it would be about the same as taking an anabolic steroid, but would require fewer injections and the effect would be permanent.

In the case of muscle wasting disease, if the disease was still present, muscles would still waste, regardless of size.

One thing to consider is; the difference between burst strength and prolonged use strength. A long distance runner would not want oversized muscles which weigh more and use energy less efficiently. If you notice, monkeys/apes tend to rest/sleep more than we do, could it be because of less efficient energy use?

The myostatin gyne controls muscle growth, you turn that off and you're muscles don't stop growing, ever. I have seen a infant with a myostatin gyne mutation that resembled a body builder.

The body building supplement industry is trying desperately to find a selective myostatin gyne inhibitor. In 2001 a researcher created a 'mighty mouse' by injecting certain inhibitors, the results were mice twice as strong as normal. There is also a myostatin antibody called 'MYO-029' which is undergoing human testing right now. It is also believe to be a potential cure for diseases such as muscular dystrophy and diabetes.

Punch myostatin into google and you get numerous scam sites trying to sell it to bodybuilders.

'http://www.pathguy.com/lectures/myostatin_deficient_cow.jpg'

'http://www.mdausa.org/publications/images/q12-5_myostatin_mice.jpg'

MYH16 is only a masticatory (chewing) muscle gene. To get a full body experience, you would need to find an agonist for all myosin producing genes. The only problem with this is that studies have shown a direct corelation between myosin and fast twitch muscle fibers.

Fast twitch muscle contains a much higher percentage of myocin (an enzyme)than slow twitch fibers. You would be more powerful and faster, but for a shorter amount of time. It also seems like you would be at a much higher risk for heart touble.

The results of kinase assays performed on the fibers showed that MLCK activity levels paralleled the MLCK mRNA levels found in each of the three types of skeletal muscle fibers studied. Fast- twitch oxidative glycolytic (gastrocnemius red) and slow-twitch oxidative (soleus) exhibited 60 and 13%, respectively, of the enzymatic activity present in fast-twitch glycolytic (gastrocnemius white) fibers.

MLCK= Muscular Myosin Light Chain Kinase

As far as gene therapy goes (I'm paraphrasing at best), of the mutated genes (myosin heavy chain-B isoform of Xenopus nonmuscle myosin) that were injected into humans, chickens, and frogs, only the frogs contained the genes in skeletal muscle (mutated genes were found throughout the body in fact). Chickens and humans, on the other hand, contained the genes in most other esential organs, but not in skeletal muscles.

It really doesn't sound overly promising right now.

sparkchaser, very useful.

However, correct me if wrong, but isn't the smooth muscle of the heart a completely different thing to the other muscle fibres in the body?

I think that the issue with targetting the muscles is a good one, because if it had a halflife of (say) 4 hours, you could dope up on it before your workout, then any damaged muscles would repair using the new gene, whilst the muscles you didn't want to target would be fine. This would reduce the risk of heart issues or system failure, purely due to you taking care when training, to only target the muscles you wanted to boost.

I bet the US (or any) army would flip for this. "Solider boosts" is right out of the comicbooks. ;-)

I bet the US (or any) army would flip for this. "Solider boosts" is right out of the comicbooks. ;-)

Actually this type of mucle / workout boost is available. It's the creatine. The researches indicate that during a workout the muscles burn a few grams of creatine and if you supplement creatine before working out, then you may work longer thereby increase muscle mass faster.

I researched about the issue (i.e. synthesis of creatine). However the raw materials are dangerous and noxious substances. :(

Muscles: Don't use them, don't lose them

* 02 September 2006
* From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
* Caroline Williams


Pump up the volume

Six years ago a baby born in Germany surprised everyone. At birth he had double the muscle mass of a normal baby and virtually no fat. By the age of five he could hold a 3-kilogram weight in each hand with his arms stretched out to the side.

His doctor was impressed enough to call in Markus Schuelke, a paediatrician at Charité University Medical Centre in Berlin. Schuelke discovered that the boy had a mutation in both copies of the gene coding for the muscle growth inhibitor myostatin. The boy's mother, a former professional sprinter, turned out to have a mutation in one copy of the gene and reported a history of unusual strength in her extended family. The boy, however, is the first individual known to lack any myostatin at all.

Blocking myostatin in mice makes them twice as muscular as usual, but no one knew whether a similar approach would work in humans. The discovery of the boy opened up that possibility, and made it easier to get approval for a major clinical trial to see if blocking myostatin with an antibody therapy developed by pharmaceutical firm Wyeth will prevent further muscle loss in people with muscular dystrophy.

Muscular dystrophy causes a different kind of muscle wasting from that seen in disuse or disease - the muscle cells do not just shrink, they die. Myostatin is thought to keep muscle stem cells called satellite cells in check, and in its absence the satellite cells give rise to new muscle cells. Blocking myostatin will not solve the underlying causes of muscular dystrophy, but by boosting muscle growth it might help compensate for the lost tissue. However, it is possible that the treatment might exhaust the supply of satellite cells, in which case it would provide only a temporary reprieve.

The antibody trial is now under way at centres around the world and the first results are expected by the end of the year. It is hoped that myostatin blockers could also help treat other kinds of muscle wasting and the elderly. Meanwhile, everyone is waiting to see whether the first documented superbaby will grow into a superman.

How very interesting! So now we have the ability to block the myostatin until we run out of stem cells, but how do we induce a higher level of stem cells for the people who would need them, i.e. MD victims? From what I've seen on the stem cell front, things are pretty well blocked by the christian right as far as fetal stem cell research goes. Has anybody heard anything about how things are going with the whole stem cells from teeth theory?

Get the Chinese to do it? Or do it otherwise "off-shore".