Sarcomere dynamics during muscular contraction and their implications to muscle function

In Vivo Imaging of Sarcomere Dynamics during Muscle Contraction in Mice

Sarcomeres are contractile units of muscle and their lengths provide the degree of availability of myosin motors interacting with actin filaments. Therefore, sarcomere lengths in myofibrils and muscle fibers are regarded as an important mechanical parameter to understand the mechanics of muscle contraction. However, there is a gap in understanding of muscle contractile mechanics between molecul...

Muscle contraction: Sliding filament history, sarcomere dynamics and the two Huxleys

Despite having all the evidence needed to come to the right conclusions in the middle of the 1800s, it was not until the 1950s that it was realised by two unrelated Huxleys and their collaborators that striated muscle sarcomeres contain overlapping sets of filaments which do not change much in length and which slide past each other when the muscle sarcomere shortens. It then took quite a while ...

Relation of muscle cell contraction and calcium distribution in sarcomere.

A model of activation of muscle contraction has been proposed. It is based on calcium diffusion and binding to specific regulatory sites in a sarcomere. Calcium ions activate interactions of contractile proteins and thus the generation of force. The model quantifies the relation between calcium released from intracellular stores and the elicited force.

Contraction Bands at Short Sarcomere Length in Chick Muscle

Dystrophin protects the sarcolemma from stresses developed during muscle contraction ( muscular dystrophy / muscle injury / mdx mouse )

The protein dystrophin, normally found on the cytoplasmic surface of skeletal muscle cell membranes, is absent in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy as well as mdx (X-linked muscular dystrophy) mice. Although its primary structure has been determined, the precise functional role of dystrophin remains the subject of speculation. In the present study, we demonstrate that dystrophin-deficie...