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Cooperative Muscular Activation by Calcium

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The Sliding-Filament Theory of Muscle Contraction

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Abstract

An ultimate test of theories of muscle contraction is to reproduce contractile behaviour as a function of the sarcoplasmic concentration of calcium ions. In muscle, the cooperative nature of Ca2+-activation seen with regulated actin in solution is manifest in the steep rise of isometric tension and ATPase rate with [Ca2+], and also in the regulation of transient responses. This chapter surveys the wealth of behaviour observed in striated muscle, fibres, myofibrils and motility assays, before turning to theories of cooperative regulation in fibres. For a single thin filament, a lattice theory of cooperative activation with TmTn units as a continuous flexible chain is developed, and explored computationally with a simple crossbridge model. Spontaneous oscillatory contractions (SPOC) constitute a new state of muscle observed only at low calcium, which can be modelled in terms of enhanced length activation on the descending limb. Finally, we consider direct myosin regulation by its light chains, and whether this mechanism can act cooperatively.

Muscle is so varied structurally and functionally that the methods used in its study include almost every discipline used by biologists, biochemists and biophysicists A. Sandow, 1970, Ann. Rev. Physiol. Vol. 32, page 87.

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  1. Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Microbiology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    David Aitchison Smith

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Aitchison Smith, D. (2018). Cooperative Muscular Activation by Calcium. In: The Sliding-Filament Theory of Muscle Contraction. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03526-6_8

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