Biochemical Approach to Muscular Function in Insects

　I．INTRODUCTION

　The current biochemical theories of muscular contraction are chiefly based upon a number of fruitful investigations on rabbit skeletal muscle．It is of great interest to conduct comparative studies in the animal kingdom on a wide scale．The results may be useful to decide what phenomena are essential for muscular function, because the essential events must be universal among all animal muscles．

　For the last five years, the writer has been engaged in the comparative biochemistry of muscle contractile proteins in invertebrates．The outline of the study has been recently summed up（1）．