Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 25 views

    18 Smooth Muscle

    Uploaded by

    محمود محمد
    This document discusses the physiology of smooth muscle. It describes the unique characteristics of smooth muscle cells, including the lack of cross-striations and presence of dense bodies instead of Z-lines. It outlines the types of smooth muscle and electrical activity in unitary smooth muscle. The molecular basis of contraction is explained, involving calcium influx and phosphorylation of myosin. The document also covers mechanical and chemical characteristics, relaxation pathways, innervation, force generation and plasticity of smooth muscle.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    18 Smooth Muscle

    Uploaded by

    محمود محمد
    25 views3 pages
    This document discusses the physiology of smooth muscle. It describes the unique characteristics of smooth muscle cells, including the lack of cross-striations and presence of dense bodies instead of Z-lines. It outlines the types of smooth muscle and electrical activity in unitary smooth muscle. The molecular basis of contraction is explained, involving calcium influx and phosphorylation of myosin. The document also covers mechanical and chemical characteristics, relaxation pathways, innervation, force generation and plasticity of smooth muscle.

    Original Title

    18 smooth muscle

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document discusses the physiology of smooth muscle. It describes the unique characteristics of smooth muscle cells, including the lack of cross-striations and presence of dense bodies instead of Z-lines. It outlines the types of smooth muscle and electrical activity in unitary smooth muscle. The molecular basis of contraction is explained, involving calcium influx and phosphorylation of myosin. The document also covers mechanical and chemical characteristics, relaxation pathways, innervation, force generation and plasticity of smooth muscle.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    25 views3 pages

    18 Smooth Muscle

    Uploaded by

    محمود محمد
    This document discusses the physiology of smooth muscle. It describes the unique characteristics of smooth muscle cells, including the lack of cross-striations and presence of dense bodies instead of Z-lines. It outlines the types of smooth muscle and electrical activity in unitary smooth muscle. The molecular basis of contraction is explained, involving calcium influx and phosphorylation of myosin. The document also covers mechanical and chemical characteristics, relaxation pathways, innervation, force generation and plasticity of smooth muscle.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 3

    This document was created by Alex Yartsev (dr.alex.yartsev@gmail.

    com); if I have used your data or images and forgot to reference you, please email me.

    Smooth Muscle Physiology


    Special characteristics of smooth muscle
    - NO CROSS-STRIATIONS!
    - This is because actin and myosin are not arranged in orderly arrays. But they are still present
    - Instead of Z-lines, there are DENSE BODIES in the cytoplasm
    - TROPONIN IS ABSENT
    - There are relatively few mitochondria
    - There is no stead “resting membrane potential” – it fluctuates according to activity

    Types of smooth muscle


    - Unitary, or Visceral:
    o Large sheets
    o Many low-resistance gap junctions
    o Functions as a syncytium
    o Mainly found in hollow viscera
    o Nerve endings arrive at only a few of the cells; the action potential spreads to the others by gap junction
    conduction
    - Multiunit smooth muscle:
    o Individual muscle units with few (or none) gap junctions
    o An example is the iris of the eye
    o Each cell has its own nerve ending
    Blood vessels have both unitary and multi-unit smooth muscle in them.

    UNITARY SMOOTH MUSCLE ELECTRICAL ACTIVITY


    o UNITARY SMOOTH MUSCLE Characterized by
     INSTABILITY OF THE MEMBRANE
     CONTINUOUS, INVOLUNTARY, IRREGULAR CONTRACTIONS
     This continuous state of partial contraction is called TONUS
     Resting membrane potential varies- in periods of quiescence its between -20 to -65mV, but it all
    depends on how active the tissue is.
     There are slow sine-wave fluctuations of membrane potentials, with random spikes which sometimes
    overshoot the 0-line
     The spikes last about 50 ms
     If you manage to catch a smooth muscle in a moment of inactivity, and stimulate it, the delay of the
    excitation-contraction coupling is about 0.5 seconds
    This document was created by Alex Yartsev (dr.alex.yartsev@gmail.com); if I have used your data or images and forgot to reference you, please email me.

    MOLECULAR BASIS OF CONTRACTION


     YES, THERE IS STILL CALCIUM INFLUX
     YES, it still causes the contraction
     HOWEVER, the source of the calcium can be just about anywhere
    Influx via the voltage-gated calcium channels in the sarcolemma
    Influx from the intracellular sarcoplasmic reticulum stores via the ryanodine receptor
    Influx from intracellular stores via the inositol triphosphate receptor (IP3R)
    Any combination of the above
     Also, THERE IS NO TROPONIN TO BIND THE CALCIUM – rather, myosin needs to be
    phosporylated for the activation of the myosin ATPase
     CALMODULIN is the calcium-binding protein instead of troponin; the Ca++-calmodulin complex
    activates calmodulin light-chain kinase and this kinase phosphorylates the myosin light chain, which
    in turn increases the ATPase activity

    Calcium Influx Ryanodine

    receptor
    from sarcoplasmic reticulum
    interacellular Ca++ stores
    Inositol
    triphosphate Ca++
    receptor Ca++
    Ca++

    Ca++
    Voltage- Calmodulin
    gated Ca++
    from extracellular fluid channel

    Phosphate

    Myosin Calmodulin-dependent myosin light-chain kinase


    ATP
    Phosphorylated Myosin

    Contraction occurs 
    Phosphorylated Myosin Myosin light chain phosphatase

    ADP
    Myosin

    Phosphate

    - After doing its job, the myosin is dephosphorylated by myosin light chain phosphatase
    - However this does not mean that the smooth muscle relaxes- there is a “latch” mechanism via which the actin and myocin remain
    cross-bridged even after the Ca++ concentration falls
    - This produces SUSTAINED CONTRACTION WITH LITTLE ENERGY EXPENDITURE: which is great for
    vascular smooth muscle. Relaxation eventually occurs when the calcium-calmodulin complex eventually dissolves, or
    when some other mechanism intervenes.
    - The sequence of events in multiunit smooth muscle is virtually identical to that in unitary smooth muscle
    This document was created by Alex Yartsev (dr.alex.yartsev@gmail.com); if I have used your data or images and forgot to reference you, please email me.

    MECHANICAL AND CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS


    - UNLIKE ANY OTHER TYPES OF MUSCLE, unitary smooth muscle will respond by contraction to being stretched.
    - Stretch is followed by a decline in membrane potential, by an increased frequency of spikes, and by increased tone

    ADRENALINE and NORADRENALINE serve to relax intestinal smooth muscle.

    ACETYLCHOLINE serves to cause contractions; this happens because the muscarinic


    receptors activate Phospholipase C, which in turn produces inositol triphosphate (IP3) and
    allows calcium release via inositol triphosphate receptors

    MULTIUNIT SMOOTH MUSCLE is the reverse: Noradrenaline tends to activate it, causing it to
    contract- even a small amount will result in something like an irregular tetanus, rather than a
    single twitch. A single twitch for multiunit smooth muscle is very similar to that of skeletal
    muscle, but it lasts about 10 times as long.

    Relaxation

    Endothelial Cell
    NO

    Vascular smooth muscle cell

    Activated
    Guanylate cyclase
    guanylate cyclase cGMP-sensitive
    protein kinases and
    GMP cGMP phosphatases

    SMOOTH MUSCLE RELAXATION

    - “Endothelial-Derived Relaxation Factor”, EDRF, turned out to be nitric oxide (NO).


    - It is a simple molecule which diffuses freely out of the endothelial cells into the smooth muscle of the blood vessels
    - Once inside, it activates soluble guanylate cyclase, which “cyclifies” guanosine monophosphate, turning it into
    cyclic GMP.
    - The cGMP then goes on to activate a whole lot of cGMP-sensitive enzymes which have the net effect of relaxing this
    vascular smooth muscle.

    Innervation of smooth muscle


    - Unitary smooth muscle has dual innervations, from the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems, and
    it responds to both locally released synaptic mediators and to circulating autonomic hormones
    - THE FUNCTION OF THE NERVE SUPPLY IS NOT TO INITIATE MUSCLE ACTIVITY BUT TO MODIFY IT

    FORCE GENERATION AND PLASTICITY OF SMOOTH MUSCLE


    - Smooth muscle is insanely efficient; in comparison with skeletal muscle, it contains 20% of the myosin, and has
    almost 100 times less ATPase activity- but the force it produces is approximately the same, per crossectional area
    - The tradeoff is the velocity of contraction - the smooth muscle is much slower
    - THERE IS NO RESTING LENGTH: if you stretch a length of smooth muscle, it will increase its tension, and then
    gradually relax into the new length. So its impossible to correlate length and tension. In this sense, the smooth
    muscle behaves as a viscous mass, and so this feature is called PLASTICITY

    References: Ganong Review of Medical physiology, 23rd ed, chapter 5

    You might also like