Smooth - Cardiac Muscle - Lecture 9
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Smooth Muscle - internal organs, stomach, blood vessels
1. Structure of fibers
a. smaller than skeletal; 0.2 mm long; no t-tubules required
b. individual fibers - no fusion of cells therefore only 1 nuclei
c. gap junctions - therefore each cell does not require innervation electrical activity can spread from cell to cell
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d. they have actin and myosin but arrangement is different
no striations since elements overlap
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e. autonomic innervation - involuntary
2. Function - regulation is via Ca++
a. depends on external - extracellular and intracellular Ca++ little sarcoplasmic reticulum; no t-tubules
b. Ca++ binds to calmodulin; similar to troponin C, but located on myosin head
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c. with Ca++ attached a protein kinase will phosphorylate myosin head enabling it to interact with actin - sliding filament
d. activate smooth muscle by stretching it - worm stretch - depolarization-contraction
e. some types have inherent pacemaker spontaneous electrical depolarization
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pacemaker activity is due to increase permeability for Ca++ or Na+ or
decreased permeability for K+ --- not completely known
Cardiac Muscle - intermediate between smooth and skeletal
structure :
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