Ch. 12 Muscle Three types of muscle Skeletal muscle Anatomy Arrangement of muscle fibers Filaments in muscle fibers Proteins in muscle filaments Other parts of muscle fibers
Three types of muscle Skeletal muscle Cardiac muscle Smooth muscle
Muscles generate movement and force. Sometimes muscles generate force without movement. The muscle is a collection of muscle cells. Each muscle cell is called a muscle fiber. The muscle contains muscle fibers, blood vessels, nerve fibers, connective tissue. The muscle cell (fiber) is multinucleated.
Motor unit A single motor neuron and all the muscle fibers that it innervates.
Muscle fiber anatomy: lots of myofibrils
Myofibrils are contractile elements. Thick filaments: myosin Thin filaments:actin
Sarcomere Thick filament (myosin) Thin filament (actin) M line
M line
(F-actin polymers)
Other components of the muscle fiber
Nebulin, not elastic, helps to align the actin filament Titin, a huge elastic molecule stabilizes the position of the contractile proteins And returns sarcomere to its resting length after stretching.