Introduction to Muscles

Microanatomy
Muscles and Forces
• Muscle cells convert chemical energy into
force

• Three major types

– Skeletal – attached to bony skeleton

– Smooth – surrounds hollow organs and

tubes,
stomach, intestinal tract, blood vessels

– Cardiac muscle – pumping muscle of the

heart
 • Muscle such as biceps made up of muscle
cells, bound together by connective tissue and
attached to bone at either end by tendon

•Three layers of
connective tissue
– epimysium – around entire
muscle

– perimysium- divides
muscle into clumps of muscle
fibers

– endomysium- surrounds
each muscle fiber
Skeletal Muscle Structure
• Muscle cells are gigantic cells, 10 to 100 µm in
diameter, up to 20 cm long

• Adult muscle cell formed by fusion of

undifferentiated mononucleate cells (myoblasts) to
form a multinucleate cell.

• Damaged muscle cells generally do not

regenerate; some replacement by undifferentiated
satellite cells associated with endomysium
Skeletal Muscle Structure
• Muscle cells are activated by motor neurons. One
motor neuron (in spinal cord) will innervate
(connect to) many muscle fibers.

• The collection of muscle fibers innervated by one

motor neuron is called a motor unit – it is the
contractile unit of a muscle.Typically there are
many motor units in a single muscle.
Muscle Ultrastructure

• In the light microscope, a series of light and dark

bands can be observed in histological slides and in
polarized light in living muscle – striations, hence
striated muscle. Within a muscle cell there are
many cylindrical - elements (1-2 µm in diameter)
called myofibrils, that have striations.

• Each striation is called a sarcomere

Muscle Ultrastructure
• Each sarcomere is composed of two major
proteins

• Myosin, a long shaft with two cross bridges

(‘lollipops’) at one end. Myosin molecules bundled
together so that the cross bridges stick out at regular
intervals around the bundle’s circumference (15 nm
diameter). Individual myosin molecules connected
together at the center of the sarcomere by a
specialized protein at the M line; one bundle faces to
the left, the other to the right.
Muscle Ultrastructure
• The bundle of myosin molecules is called a ‘thick
filament’. An array of thick filaments makes up the
region of the sarcomere called the A band.

• Actin, a major cytoskeletal protein, is composed

of globular subunits that hook together like beads on
a necklace to form a long filament. Two actin
filaments wrap around each other to form a ‘thin
filament’ (5 nm).

• On the surface of the thin filament a long protein,

tropomyosin, wraps around it, attached at regular
intervals by the protein troponin.
Muscle Ultrastructure
• The thin filaments are bound to a protein lattice
called the Z disk at either end of the sarcomere;
the thin filament region is called the I band. The
thick filaments are also attached to the Z disk
proteins by a protein called titin.

• Thick and thin filaments are interdigitated with

six
thin filaments around a thick filament.