the myofilament under bouts of chronic and acute forms of exercise. While the exact mechanism of myofilament alteration in response to exercise is still being studied in mammals, some interesting clues have been revealed in Thoroughbred race horses. Researchers studied the presence of mRNA in skeletal muscle of horses at three distinct times; immediately before training, immediately after training, and four hours after training. They reported statistically significant differences in mRNA for genes specific to production of actin. This study provides evidence of the mechanisms for both immediate and delayed myofilament response to exercise at the molecular level. More recently, myofilament protein changes have been studied in humans in response to resistance training. Again, researchers are not completely clear about the molecular mechanisms of change, and an alteration of fiber-type composition in the myofilament may not be the answer many athletes have long assumed. This study looked at the muscle specific tension in the quadriceps femoris and vastus lateralis of forty-two young men. Researchers report a 17% increase in specific muscle tension after a period of resistance training, despite a decrease in the presence of MyHC, myosin heavy-chain. This study concludes that there is no clear relationship between fiber-type composition and in vivo muscle tension, nor was there evidence of myofilament packing in the trained muscles. Research Other promising areas of research that may illumine the exact molecular nature of exercise-induced protein remodeling in muscle may be the study of related proteins involved with cell architecture, such as desmin and dystrophin. These proteins are thought to provide the cellular scaffolding necessary for the actin-myosin complex to undergo contraction. Research on desmin revealed that its presence increased greatly in a test group exposed to resistance training, while there was no evidence of desmin increase with endurance training. According to this study, there was no detectable increase in dystrophin in resistance or endurance training. It may be that exercise-induced myofilament alterations involve more than the contractile proteins actin & myosin. While the research on muscle fiber remodeling is on-going, there are generally accepted facts about the myofilament from the American College of Sports Medicine. It is thought that an increase in muscle strength is due to an increase in muscle fiber size, not an increase in number of muscle fibers and myofilaments. However, there is some evidence of animal satellite cells differentiating into new muscle fibers and not merely providing a support