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Organization of Contractile Fibers in Smooth Muscle

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Cell and Muscle Motility

Abstract

The smooth muscle of vertebrates is chiefly a mural tissue of the large and small hollow organ systems. The “smoothness” of this musculature presumably describes the impression of a uniformity in the optical properties of the cytoplasm that contrasts with the regular optical anisotropy that is characteristic of the striated muscles. The quality of optical uniformity is obtained from a labyrinth of three distinct systems of cytoplasmic filaments that comprise the bulk of the contractile apparatus, and a major objective in contemporary morphological analysis of smooth muscle is to elucidate the molecular organization of the constituent filaments and define the symmetry of the functional elements. Structural studies have been undertaken primarily with the view of establishing correlations between the composition and organization of the filaments in smooth muscle fibers and the structural composition of the sarcomere in striated muscle (Shoenberg and Needham, 1976; Chamley-Camp- bell et al., 1979; Small and Sobieszek, 1980; Somlyo, 1980). The basis for this approach is provided by some quantitative and especially qualitative similarities in the traditionally defined functional characteristics shared by smooth and striated muscle, and by the remarkable correlations between structural changes and functional variation that are formulated or otherwise implicit in the sliding filament concept and the cross-bridge model of contraction for the striated muscles.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut, 06032, USA

    Peter Cooke

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  1. Peter Cooke
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Texas Health Science Center, Dallas, Texas, USA

    Robert M. Dowben  & Jerry W. Shay  & 

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© 1983 Plenum Press, New York

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Cooke, P. (1983). Organization of Contractile Fibers in Smooth Muscle. In: Dowben, R.M., Shay, J.W. (eds) Cell and Muscle Motility. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9296-9_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9296-9_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4615-9298-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-9296-9

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