X-ray diffraction study of oriented gels of titin

This work is concerned with the X-ray diffraction study of oriented gels of titin. A topological zig-zag model of a giant fibrillar molecule of titin is proposed. The model suggests that a titin molecule consists of successively joined anisotropic domains, and the long axes of adjacent domains are connected at a nearly right angle relative to each other but are not necessarily inclined at equal angles relative to the fibril axis. The structural mechanism of the high elasticity of the titin molecule is discussed in terms of the physics of structural transitions in crystalline polymers.