Multiple Fascicles

Skeletal Muscle Structure.The cells of skeletal muscles are long fiber-like structures. They contain many nuclei and are subdivided into smaller structures called myofibrils. Myofibrils are composed of 2 kinds of myofilaments. The thin filaments are made of 2 strands of the protein actin and one strand of a regulatory protein coiled together. The thick filaments are staggered arrays of myosin molecules.

Skeletal Muscle: these muscles come in different size and shapes that are designed for the fibres, they have really tiny strands of stapedium muscle.

form of myosin ATP and are not very good at delivering calcium to the muscle

Serves as the cell 's skeleton. It is an interior protein system that gives the cytoplasm quality and adaptability. The cytoskeleton of all cells is made of microfilaments, halfway fibers, and microtubules. Muscle cells contain these cytoskeletal parts in addition to thick fibers. The fibers and microtubules of the cytoskeleton frame a dynamic system whose ceaseless rearrangement influences cell shape and capacity.

Muscles are made up of small fibres that contract making the whole muscle contract. There are three types of muscle fibre; Type 1, Type 2a and Type 2b. All individuals have a combination of all fibre types and their combination of fibre types is genetically determined. Different parts of the body have different combinations of fibre types.

Muscle fibres, as shown in Diagram 1, consist of myofibrils, which contain the proteins, actin and myosin, in specific arrangements . The diagram illustrates how a muscle is made up of many fascicles, which in turn are made up of many endomysiums, and within them, many muscle fibres. Each muscle fibre is made up of many myofibrils that consist of sarcomeres bound end on end . Actin is a thin filament, about 7nm in diameter, and myosin is a thick filament, about 15nm in diameter , both of which reside in the sarcomere. They are held together by transverse bands known as Z lines . Diagram 2 shows actin and myosin filaments within a sarcomere, and the Z lines that connect them.

Rationale, Significance and Hypothesis. An extrinsic factor, which exerts a dominant influence on skeletal muscle fiber phenotype, is the nervous system. Buller et al. (1960) elegantly demonstrated the plastic nature of skeletal muscle fibers in response to changes in innervation type. Later, Lφmo and Westgaard (Lφmo and Westgaard, 1974; Westgaard and Lφmo, 1988) demonstrated that depolarization of muscle with specific patterns and frequencies of electrical activity are sufficient to cause changes in mature muscle fiber phenotypes. However, how myofibrillar gene expression and structural organization is affected by the frequency of impulses during activity, the amount of activity over time, or other characteristics of patterned activity is essentially unknown. To answer these questions will require the isolation and study of subsets of muscle-specific proteins in relation to different electrical activation patterns in vivo, an issue that cannot be easily addressed in preparations currently used in the study of muscle development and maintenance. However, using novel in vivo approaches can, in part, circumvent this difficulty.

Muscle tissue - Muscle cells are the contractive tissue of body that produce force and cause motion within internal organs. Muscle tissue is separated into three different categories: visceral or smooth muscle that are located in the inner linings of organs and skeletal

Myofibrils are made up of long proteins that include myosin, titin, and actin while other proteins bind them together. These proteins are arranged into thin and thick filaments that are repetitive along the myofibril in sectors known as sarcomeres. The sliding of actin and myosin filaments along each other is when the muscle is contracting. Dark A-bands and light I-bands reappear along myofibrils. The alignment of myofibrils causes an appearance of the cell to look banded or striated. A myofibril is made up of lots of sarcomeres. As the sarcomeres contract individually the muscle cells and myofibrils shorten in length. The longitudinal section of skeletal muscle exhibits a unique pattern of alternating light and dark bands. The dark staining, A-bands possess a pale region in the middle called the H-zone. In the middle of the H-zone the M-line is found, that displays filamentous structures that can join the thick filaments. The light-staining bands also known as I-bands are divided by thin Z-line. These striated patterns appear because of the presence of myofibrils in the sarcoplasm (IUPUI, 2016).

When a muscle contracts, myosin heads in thick filaments bind to actin in thin filaments and pulls the thin filament, shortening the length of the muscle fiber. However, without Ca++ when troponin binds to actin, the tropomyosin moves into a position that

Actin and myosin are contractile proteins that are essential for muscle contraction (Powers). A contraction is triggered by a series of events called the crossbridge cycle. In a muscle fiber, the functional unit of contraction is called a sarcomere (Powers). A sarcomere contains myofibrils, which consist of actin and myosin myofilaments. The sarcomere shortens when myosin heads and thick myofilaments form crossbridges with actin molecules and thin myofilaments. The formation of a crossbridge is initiated when calcium ions released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum bind to troponin. An action potential triggers this release of these ions. The binding of calcium ions causes troponin to change shape. Tropomyosin moves away from the myosin binding cites on actin, allowing the myosin head to bind actin and form a crossbridge. When ATP on the myosin head has not been hydrolyzed yet, the myosin head is inactivated, or in the uncocked position. The myosin head has to be activated before a crossbridge cycle can begin (Powers). This occurs when ATP binds to the myosin head and is hydrolyzed to Adenosine Diphosphate (ADP) and an inorganic phosphate. The enzyme that breaks this ATP down is called myosin ATPase, which is located on the myosin head. The energy from the hydrolysis activates the myosin head putting it into the cocked position. The activated myosin head binds to actin forming a crossbridge. Then inorganic

Different types of muscles. Smooth muscle cells are shaped in spindles with single nucleus, have involuntary movement through the body and do not have any striation. Smooth muscle can be found in digestive system, urinary tract. Muscular cells are found as bundles, with striation and are multiple nucleus found along the membrane surface. Cardiac muscle cells are only found in the heart, the cells short, branched with a centrally located, single nucleus and are striated with intercalated disc found between to speed up the electrical conduct of the heart rhythm without external stimulus.

In the gastrocnemius muscle of the B. Marinus used, there are two types of myofilaments that are inside the muscle fibres. These myofilaments are thick filament protein called myosin, and a thin filament containing three different proteins; actin, tropomyosin and troponin. These myofilaments are arranged in myofibrils in a structure known as a sarcomere (Hopkins. M, P. 2006). The muscle in this experiment was stretched and forced to contract through an ATP-driven interaction between myosin and action called crossbridge cycling. In this process, the head of the myosin molecule extends laterally and binds with an actin molecule to form what is known as the crossbridge. The contraction of the muscle in this experiment occurs through a process called a power stroke (Hopkins.

1.a) Contractile protein molecules that are seen in skeletal muscle fibres are actin (thin filaments) and myosin (thick filaments). Together, they produce the force of muscle contractions by forming cross bridges, and moving via a power stroke. The regulatory proteins that are seen within a skeletal muscle are troponin and tropomyosin. These proteins play a role in starting or stopping muscle contractions. When a muscle fibre is relaxed, there are no contractions because actin is unable to bind with the cross bridge. This is because tropomyosin covers the myosin binding sites on the actin proteins. In addition, troponin is not bound to calcium when a muscle fibre is relaxed, thus keeping the tropomyosin in its blocking position. When calcium enters the muscle fibres, it binds with troponin. This binding causes the tropomyosin to move away

Many cells are filled with a complex network of tube like things known as the endoplasmic reticulum. The endoplasmic