Relaxation in extracted muscle fibers.

1. Ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) in low concentrations imitates all the known effects of the relaxation factor ("Marsh factor"). In extracted muscle fibers which have contracted in a solution containing adenosinetriphosphate (ATP), the addition of EBTA causes relaxation, the subsequent addition of CaCl(2), contraction. 2. In fibers which have been briefly immersed in 5 MM EDTA, ATP causes rapid relaxation if Mg is also present. These fibers have essentially the same properties as briefly extracted fibers. Brief immersion into a solution containing CaCl(2) restores at once the original condition. It is concluded that EDTA produces its action by firmly combining with bound Ca, thereby inactivating it. 3. In relaxed muscle fibers not only Ca, but also lowering the concentration of Mg below a critical level, causes contraction. In such fibers Mg in the lowest effective concentrations increases contraction, but the effect reverses above a certain concentration. 4. At 0 degrees Mg in the presence of ATP has a relaxing effect without the relaxation factor. 5. The results indicate that Mg has two distinct effects in the presence of ATP. It causes contraction at low concentrations, but above a critical concentration its relaxing action prevails. The last of these effects is blocked by bound Ca. If the latter is inactivated by EDTA, Mg in sufficiently high concentrations causes relaxation. The action of the relaxation factor can similarly be explained by assuming that it acts as a complexing agent which inactivates bound Ca. 6. Previous evidence that the relaxed state depends on the formation of an enzymatically inactive ATP-protein complex was confirmed. It was found that PP in low concentrations strongly increases the relaxing effect of ATP in briefly extracted fibers.