ORGANIZATION
Skeletal muscle is made up of individual muscle fibers that are the “building blocks” of the muscular system in the same sense that the neurons are the building blocks of the nervous system. Most skeletal muscles begin and end in tendons, and the muscle fibers are arranged in parallel between the tendinous ends, so that the force of contraction of the units is additive. Each muscle fiber is a single cell that is multinucleated, long, cylindrical, and surrounded by a cell membrane, the sarcolemma (Figure 1). There are no syncytial bridges between cells. The muscle fibers are made up of myofibrils, which are divisible into individual filaments. These myofilaments contain several proteins that together make up the contractile machinery of the skeletal muscle.
Fig1. Mammalian skeletal muscle. A) A single muscle fiber surrounded by its sarcolemma has been cut away to show individual myofibrils. The cut surface of the myofibrils shows the arrays of thick and thin filaments. The sarcoplasmic reticulum with its transverse (T) tubules and terminal cisterns surrounds each myofibril. The T tubules invaginate from the sarcolemma and contact the myofibrils twice in every sarcomere. Mitochondria are found between the myofibrils and a basal lamina surrounds the sarcolemma. B and C) Structural elements of myofibril shown in detail (see also Figure 2).
Fig2. Skeletal muscle sarcomere. A) Electron micrograph of human gastrocnemius muscle (× 13,500). The sarcomere, named bands, and lines are shown. (Used with permission from GM Walker and GR Schrodt.) B) Arrangement of thin (actin) and thick (myosin) filaments and the Z line in a relaxed skeletal muscle. C) Arrangement of thin and thick filaments and the Z-line in a contracted skeletal muscle. Note that the Z-lines come together as the thick and thin filaments slide next to each other during contraction. The thick and think filaments do not change in size.
The contractile mechanism in skeletal muscle largely depends on the proteins myosin-II, actin, tropomyosin, and troponin. Troponin is made up of three subunits: troponin I, troponin T, and troponin C. Other important proteins in muscle are involved in maintaining the proteins that participate in contraction in appropriate structural relation to one another and to the extracellular matrix.
STRIATIONS
Differences in the refractive indexes of the various parts of the muscle fiber are responsible for the characteristic cross striations seen in skeletal muscle when viewed under the microscope. The parts of the cross-striations are frequently identified by letters (Figure 2). The light I band is divided by the dark Z line, and the dark A band has the lighter H band in its center. A transverse M line is seen in the middle of the H band, and this line plus the narrow light areas on either side of it are sometimes called the pseudo-H zone. The area between two adjacent Z lines is called a sarcomere. The orderly arrangement of actin, myosin, and related proteins that pro duces this pattern can also be seen in Figures 1, 2. The thick filaments, which are about twice the diameter of the thin filaments, are made up of myosin; the thin filaments are made up of actin, tropomyosin, and troponin. The thick filaments are lined up to form the A bands, whereas the array of thin filaments extends out of the A band and into the less dense staining I bands. The lighter H bands in the center of the A bands are the regions where, when the muscle is relaxed, the thin filaments do not overlap the thick filaments. The Z lines allow for anchoring of the thin filaments. If a transverse section through the A band is examined under the electron microscope, each thick filament is seen to be surrounded by six thin filaments in a regular hexagonal pattern.
The form of myosin found in muscle is myosin-II, with two globular heads and a long tail. The heads of the myosin molecules form cross-bridges with actin. Myosin contains heavy chains and light chains, and its heads are made up of the light chains and the amino terminal portions of the heavy chains. These heads contain an actin-binding site and a catalytic site that hydrolyzes adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The myosin molecules are arranged symmetrically on either side of the center of the sarcomere, and it is this arrangement that creates the light areas in the pseudo-H zone. The M line is the site of the reversal of polarity of the myosin molecules in each of the thick filaments. At these points, there are slender cross-connections that hold the thick filaments in proper array. Each thick filament contains several hundred myosin molecules.
The thin filaments are polymers made up of two chains of actin that form a long double helix. Tropomyosin molecules are long filaments located in the groove between the two chains in the actin. Each thin filament contains 300–400 actin molecules and 40–60 tropomyosin molecules. Troponin molecules are small globular units located at intervals along the tropomyosin molecules. Each of the three troponin subunits has a unique function: Troponin T binds the troponin components to tropomyosin, troponin I inhibits the interaction of myosin with actin, and troponin C contains the binding sites for the Ca2+ that helps initiate contraction.
Some additional structural proteins that are important in skeletal muscle function include actinin, titin, and desmin. Actinin binds actin to the Z lines. Titin, the largest known protein (with a molecular mass near 3,000,000 Da), connects the Z lines to the M lines and provides scaffolding for the sarcomere. It contains two kinds of folded domains that provide muscle with its elasticity. At first when the muscle is stretched there is relatively little resistance as the domains unfold, but with further stretch there is a rapid increase in resistance that protects the structure of the sarcomere. Desmin adds structure to the Z lines in part by binding the Z lines to the plasma membrane. Some muscle disorders associated with these structural components are described in Clinical Box –1. It should be noted that although these proteins are important in muscle structure/ function, by no means do they represent an exhaustive list.
CLINICAL BOX-1
SARCOTUBULAR SYSTEM
The muscle fibrils are surrounded by structures made up of membranes that appear in electron micrographs as vesicles and tubules. These structures form the sarcotubular system, which is made up of a T system and a sarcoplasmic reticulum. The T system of transverse tubules, which is continuous with the sarcolemma of the muscle fiber, forms a grid perforated by the individual muscle fibrils (Figure 1). The space between the two layers of the T system is an extension of the extracellular space. The sarcoplasmic reticulum, which forms an irregular curtain around each of the fibrils, has enlarged terminal cisterns in close contact with the T system at the junctions between the A and I bands. At these points of contact, the arrangement of the central T system with a cistern of the sarcoplasmic reticulum on either side has led to the use of the term triads to describe the system. The T system, which is continuous with the sarcolemma, provides a path for the rapid transmission of the action potential from the cell membrane to all the fibrils in the muscle. The sarcoplasmic reticulum is an important store of Ca2+ and also participates in muscle metabolism.
COMPLEX The large dystrophin protein (molecular mass 427,000 Da) forms a rod that connects the thin actin filaments to the trans membrane protein β-dystroglycan in the sarcolemma by smaller proteins in the cytoplasm, syntrophins. β-dystroglycan is connected to merosin (merosin refers to laminins that con tain the α2 subunit in their trimeric makeup) in the extracellular matrix by α-dystroglycan (Figure 3). The dystroglycans are in turn associated with a complex of four transmembrane glycoproteins: α-, β-, γ-, and δ-sarcoglycan. This dystrophin glycoprotein complex adds strength to the muscle by pro viding a scaffolding for the fibrils and connecting them to the extracellular environment. Disruption of these important structural features can result in several different muscular dys trophies (see Clinical Box –1).
Fig3. The dystrophin–glycoprotein complex. Dystrophin connects F-actin to the two members of the dystroglycan (DG) complex, α and β-dystroglycan, and these in turn connect to the merosin subunit of laminin 211 in the extracellular matrix. The sarcoglycan complex of four glycoproteins, α-, β-, γ-, and δ-sarcoglycan, sarcospan, and syntropins are all associated with the dystroglycan complex. There are muscle disorders associated with loss, abnormalities, or both of the sarcoglycans and merosin. (Used with permission of Justin Fallon and Kevin Campbell.)
