Label:
muscle system,
swf
Muscle cells are highly specialized for a single task, contraction, and it is this specialization in structure and function that has made muscle the prototype for studying movement at the cellular and molecular levels. There are three distinct types of muscle cells in vertebrates: skeletal muscle, which is responsible for all voluntary movements; cardiac muscle, which pumps blood from the heart; and smooth muscle, which is responsible for involuntary movements of organs such as the stomach, intestine, uterus, and blood vessels. In both skeletal and cardiac muscle, the contractile elements of the cytoskeleton are present in highly organized arrays that give rise to characteristic patterns of cross-striations. It is the characterization of these structures in skeletal muscle that has led to our current understanding of muscle contraction, and other actin-based cell movements, at the molecular level.
Skeletal muscles are bundles of muscle fibers, which are single large cells (approximately 50 μm in diameter and up to several centimeters in length) formed by the fusion of many individual cells during development. Most of the cytoplasm consists of myofibrils, which are cylindrical bundles of two types of filaments: thick filaments of myosin (about 15 nm in diameter) and thin filaments of actin (about 7 nm in diameter). Each myofibril is organized as a chain of contractile units called sarcomeres, which are responsible for the striated appearance of skeletal and cardiac muscle.
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