There’s a Sport for Everybody
photo by cas; Soccer players like the ones shown in this picture probably excel at the sport because they have an a-actinin-3 deficiency, which allows them to use their energy more efficiently.
Soccer practice was brutal. The hot summer heat made every drill twice as hard as usual. Everybody was a little bit off of their game, however I was particularly sluggish. The coaches called for a water break after finally noticing that our dehydration was significantly affecting our performance. I was dragging my feet on the way to the water cooler when one of my coaches, Brett, pulled me aside from the rest of the players.
“What’s wrong Alec?” Brett asked, “You look really off today.” “Yeah,” I replied, “this heat is killing me, plus, I’m not a soccer player.” It was true, I was a basketball player, and soccer was just not my sport. I am fast at times, but I get winded just minutes after a soccer game starts. I only joined the team because Coach Brett begged me. We were short of the minimum amount of players required and I was the only boy left in camp between the ages of thirteen and fifteen with some athletic ability who was available.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a soccer player,” Coach Brett said, “If you put forth your very best effort, you will ALWAYS be the most fit and best soccer player on the field.” Well, not exactly. After further research, I found out that Coach Brett was wrong, athletic ability was not one hundred percent earned with hard work. Rather, genetics play an essential role in modern human athletic ability as well as hard work. To be more specific, the ACTN3 gene and its variation in populations throughout the world provide information about a fascinating link between the survival of ancient humans and the athletic ability of modern man.
The human ACTN3 gene encodes a protein known as a-actinin-3 , which helps the support system in fast-twitching skeletal muscle fibers. In 1999, scientists revealed that the a-actinin-3 protein was absent in more than one billion people worldwide. These one billion people with an a-actinin-3 deficiency were able to compensate by producing a similar protein known as a-actinin-2. There is an evolutionary “trade off” by possessing or not possessing the ACTN3 gene.
To acquire information and research about this evolutionary “trade off”, I contacted Dr. Kathryn North, who currently works for the Institute for Neuromuscular Research and asked her if she could help me. Dr. North was very generous and sent me documents of studies that she was involved in. In one of the studies, genetically engineered mice were used to simulate the effect of ACTN3 deficiency in humans. Observations that were obtained from this study include information about a-actinin-3’s role in the regulation of skeletal muscle’s metabolism as well as it’s mass and fiber size. Dr. North and the rest of the scientists who conducted this study also discovered something remarkable. The mice that were lacking the a-actinin-3 protein used their energy more efficiently because the muscle fibers of those mice had the metabolic and contractile properties of slow oxidative fibers. Therefore, the mice with an a-actinin-3 deficiency were able to outlast the other mice that “possessed” the a-actinin-3 in endurance activities. From this experiment, these scientists concluded that having an a-actinin-3 deficiency is associated with a more efficient aerobic muscle metabolism, which strongly favors endurance activities such as running a marathon or long distance swimming races.
However, those mice that possessed the a-actinin-3 protein had a different advantage that might be more effective in a different environment. A-actinin-3 is specifically found in fast-twitch myofibers that are responsible for generating forces at a high velocity. Since these mice possessed the a-actinin-3 protein, they were able to generate the rapid contractions needed to excel in sprinting. It all depends on which environment you are in that determines whether having or not having the a-actinin-3 protein works to your advantage.
Photo by Thomas Hawk; People who excel at short distance sprint sports like basketball probably possess the a-actinin-3 protein because the a-actinin-3 protein allows your fast twitch skeletal muscle fibers to generate more force.
Given this information, I hypothesize that I am a person who has the ACTN3 gene. A person like Coach Brett on the other hand probably possesses the a-actinin-2 protein because of his inability to excel in short distance sprinting activities and excel in long distance endurance activities. So yes, Coach Brett, you can work hard to become the best athlete you can be in a particular sport. However, the types of sports that you excel at are indeed genetically influenced. So I may not be a soccer player Coach Brett, but no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to beat me at basketball, that’s MY sport.
How do you expect the population of people who possess the a-actinin-3 to change in the future based on the current state of man? Why do you think humans first developed an a-actinin-3 deficiency? Do you think evolution and natural selection played a role, why or why not? Provide evidence based on the time period when some humans first developed an a-actinin-3 deficiency (300 million years ago).
Way to go Alec nice post. Very nice idea for this site, I wish I had teachers like this when I was in highschool.
I think this is a very good post and it’s topic is very interesting and people can relate to it. I did not know anything about the a-actinin-3 or the a-acitinin-2 and this information made me think about the sports that I play. I do think that evolution played a role in this because in an article that I found, they said that this trait varies in different ethnic groups. Also, the a-actinin-3 affects muscle function in humans.
This post makes sense in daily life. This explains why some people are better at certain sports than others and why some people are naturally athletic and others arent. This is also useful because if someone is good at a sport like basketball, they might not be that good at soccer because soccer uses a different part of your body than basketball.
Here is the website where I found more information on this post:
http://www.atypon-link.com/AAP/doi/pdf/10.1375/twin.11.4.384?cookieSet=1
Alec you did a fantastic job with this post. I had no idea that the a-actinin-3 or a-actinin-2 proteins could help you in athletic preformance. I did a little more research on my own and apparently, the actinin-3 and the a-actinin-2 proteins were develpoed roughly around 250-300 years ago. Also, the a-actinin-2 and the actinin-3 proteins are 80% identical to the amino acid sequence (when chains and sheets are arranged within a protien. We are seeing another example of human evolution in process, and also a shift in human muscle function.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/-actinin_evolution_in_humans.php
There are also many other variables that can change how a person performs in athletic situations. For example sports equipment such as running shoes can greatly change how far a person can run before getting tiered and how fast someone can run. Other variable factors include diet, training, and like Alec stated in the beginning of this post motivation. But even with these factors most physiologists say that genetics greatly affect how athletic someone can be. Having said that people who have a very high genetic potential for sports won’t excel in them if they live a lifestyle of overeating and no exercise. At the same time someone with low genetic potential can excel at sports if they truly work hard to compensate. This article truly opened my eyes to the fact that some people can be born with a natural ability to be better at sports. This is the article where I got this information.
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/anatomyandphysiology/a/genetics.htm
Alec this is a great post. I didn’t know that organisms that lack the a-actanin-3 use their energy more efficiently. The body works in amazing ways. Also, as Geoffrey said natural selection can be overcome by hard work and determination. People such as Steve Nash have worked against the odds with inner confidence to make it to where they are. People can also take steroids in order to strengthen their muscles and do things they wouldn’t be able to do naturally. This source tells more in detail about steroids and how they affect humans of both genders in positive and negative ways.
http://espn.go.com/special/s/drugsandsports/steroids.html
This article is interesting and exciting to read. I thought that putting forth effort into a sport can really enhance your ability to excel in that particular sport. This called ACTN3 gene makes you sprint fast but the ACTN2 gene makes you run long distances but not as fast. Based on the current state of man the ACTN3 will be more common in future populations because people in the future will be more concerned about competing in races and being fast and therefore the ACTN2 gene will be removed from populations. The article below states that the gene ACTN3 encodes they protein a-actinin3 which functions in the fast-twitch muscle this muscle gives you the power to sprint very fats but not for long distances. Previous studies show that 5 people in Australia with this gene seem to be healthier and more successful in winning races.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3982188?&Search=yes&term=a-actinin-3&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoAdvancedSearch%3Fq0%3Da-actinin-3%26f0%3Dall%26c0%3DAND%26q1%3D%26f1%3Dall%26c1%3DAND%26q2%3D%26f2%3Dall%26c2%3DAND%26q3%3D%26f3%3Dall%26wc%3Don%26Search%3DSearch%26sd%3D%26ed%3D%26la%3D%26jo%3D&item=1&ttl=6&returnArticleService=showArticle
This is a great post Alec. It explains very well how the body basically performes during athletic situations. The points that Alec mentioned about how you can perform better such as a diet and getting better equiptment are great. Also, I never knew that you genes mattered so much in sports because I thought it was all about practice and given skill. I found out that the body builds better stamina by working at something when you are tired because that is when your body obsorbes the most information. http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/27975147/The-Chiropractic-Sports-Practice
Good post Alec! This blog post gave alot of information regarding peoples ability and athletisism and how it is related to genetics. I did not know that being athletic can be passed down from a person to their offspring. While I was trying to find more information about the topic I found out that ?-actinin is a cytoskeletal protein that is very important for your muscles to contain in order to have these athletic genes. These proteins criss cross through your cells. To find more information on this topic you can go to this website: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/-actinin_evolution_in_humans.php
This article was great and it was interesting to see that the acitin-3 is one of the essential proteins for athletes. Yet it has been proven by scientists that a perfect athlete does not necessarily have to have acitin-3 nor acitin-2 to be a perfect and one of the top athletes. A spanish scientist found an long jumper who had participated in both European and World Championships at just the age of 16, and had 2 non-functioning ACTN3 proteins. This proves that an athlete doesn’t have to necesarily have the “speed gene” ACTN3 in order to become a great athlete.
https://www.23andme.com/gen101/variation/speed/
Alec this is a great sport and I love the way it describes how your body performs during athletic activity. Alec also mentioned how you can perform better with a better diet and with better equipment. Also the ACTN3 gene that helps you performs better athletically. Science Blogs (a website) did a test on how this gene helps you better athletically. They determined that it helps your muscle development and around 18 % of ‘Pros’ have this gene. Another thing is that the amount you work at helps you become better. http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/2008/11/the_actn3_sports_gene_test_wha.php