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The Long And Winding Road: Influences Of Intracellular Metabolite Diffusion On Cellular Organization And Metabolism In Skeletal Muscle, Stephen T. Kinsey, Kristin M. Hardy, Bruce R. Locke

Biological Sciences

A fundamental principle of physiology is that cells are small in order to minimize diffusion distances for O₂ and intracellular metabolites. In skeletal muscle, it has long been recognized that aerobic fibers that are used for steady state locomotion tend to be smaller than anaerobic fibers that are used for burst movements. This tendency reflects the interaction between diffusion distances and aerobic ATP turnover rates, since maximal intracellular diffusion distances are ultimately limited by fiber size. The effect of diffusion distance on O₂ flux in muscle has been the subject of quantitative analyses for a century, but the …