Muscles

Functions of Muscle Tissue

p Producing movement
p Maintaining posture
p Stabilizing joints
p Generating heat
Types of Muscles
Type Voluntary/ Striations Movement of Location
Involuntary Muscles

Skeletal Voluntary + Rapid but tires Skeletal muscles

easily which attach to
(“muscle fibers”) and cover the
bony skeleton

Cardiac Involuntary + Usually steady Heart

rate

Smooth Involuntary - Slow and Walls of hollow

sustained visceral organs
(“muscle fibers”) (e.g. stomach,
urinary bladder,
etc.)
Skeletal Muscle Microscopic View
Microscopic Anatomy: 

Skeletal Muscle Fiber
p Long, cylindrical cell, multiple oval nuclei
arranged beneath the sarcolemma
p Diameter: 10-100 um, Length: up to 30 cm
p Sarcoplasm contains large amounts of
glycosomes and myoglobin
p Each muscle fiber contains hundreds to
thousands of myofibrils
Rodlike structures, 1-2 um, account for 80 %
of cellular volume
Contain the contractile elements of skeletal
muscle fibers
Microscopic Anatomy: 

Skeletal Muscle Fiber
p Striations: repeating series of dark
bands and light bands that are nearly
perfectly aligned with one another
p A band: dark band
p I band: light band
p H zone: light zone in midsection of A
band
p M line: bisects the H zone
p Z disc (or Z line): bisects the I band
Microscopic Anatomy:

Skeletal Muscle Fiber
p Sarcomere:
Region of a myofibril between two successive Z
discs
Contains an A band flanked by half an I band at
each end
Smallest contractile unit of a muscle fiber (ave. 2
um long)
Microscopic Anatomy:

Muscle Fiber
p Myofilaments
Thick filaments – composed of myosin
Thin filaments – composed of actin
Thick Filaments
p Each myosin molecule has:
Rodlike tail consisting of two interwoven
helical polypeptide chains
Two globular heads which contain ATPase
enzymes – split ATP to generate energy
during contraction
Thin Filaments
p Polypeptide subunits of actin called G
actin (globular actin) contain the
active sites to which myosin heads
attach during contraction
Thin Filaments
Tropomyosin – rod-shaped protein which
spirals about the actin core
p Helps stiffen actin
p Blocks myosin binding sites on actin so that the
myosin heads cannot bind to the thin filaments
Troponin
p Binds tropomyosin and helps position it on actin
p Binds calcium ions
Sarcoplasmic Reticulum and

T- Tubules
p Two sets of intracellular tubules that
participate in regulation of muscle
contraction
p Sarcoplasmic reticulum
p T Tubules
Sarcoplasmic Reticulum
p Composed of interconnecting tubules that
surround each myofibril
p Form large, perpendicular cross channels at
the A band-I band junctions called terminal
cisternae (occur in pairs)
p Regulates intracellular Ca+ (stores Ca+ and
releases it on demand when the muscle
fiber is stimulated to contract)
T- Tubules
p Elongated tubes located at each A band-I
band junction, formed by the sarcolemma
penetrating into the cell interior
p Lumen is continuous with the extracellular
space
p Conduct impulses to the deepest regions of
the muscle cell and to every sarcomere
p Triad: terminal cisterna + T tubule + terminal
cisterna
Triad
p As each T tubule protrudes deep into
the cell it runs between the paired
terminal cisternae of the SR
p Terminal cisterna + T tubule +
terminal cisterna
Sliding Filament Model Contraction
p During contraction, the thin filaments slide
past the thick filaments so that the actin
and myosin filaments overlap to a greater
degree
Sliding Filament Theory
Definition of Terms
p Synaptic cleft
Space that separates the axon terminal and the muscle
fiber
Filled with gel-like extracellular substance rich in
glycoproteins and collagen fibers
p Acetylcholine (ACh)
Neurotransmitter released from the presynaptic vesicles
p Acetylcholinesterase
Enzyme located in the synaptic cleft which breaks down
Ach
p Motor endplate
Trough-like part of the muscle fiber’s sarcolemma
Highly-excitable region, responsible for initiation of action
potentials across the muscle's surface
Neuromuscular Junction
Cardiac Muscle
Structure of Cardiac Myocytes
p Cardiac myocytes- separate cellular unit of
cardiac muscle
p 80 micrometer in length, 15 micrometer in
diameter
p Joined end to end at junctional complexes
called intercalated disks which is
comparable to zonula adherens of
epithelial junction
Cardiac muscle
p Principal identifying features of cardiac
muscle are:
p 1. Centrally placed single nucleus of the
myocytes
p 2.Presence of transverse intercalated disks
at intervals along the length of the
myofibers
Smooth Muscle
Microscopic Structure
p Smooth muscle is made up long fusiform
cells with an elongated nucleus located
centrally
p Ratio of actin to myosin filament is 12 to 1
p Gap junction – provides the cell-cell
communication necessary for integrated
contraction
Histophysiology
p Smooth muscle contraction is initiated by
influx of calcium that binds to calcium
binding protein called calmodulin.
p The calcium-calmodulin complex binds to
myosin light chain-kinase that activates
and catalyzes the phosphorylation of
myosin light chains, enabling to interact
with actin filaments and cause contraction
Thank you for listening !