肌肉收缩的分子机制:一个历史视角

Actin and myosin are contractile proteins that form the sarcomere found in skeletal muscle tissues for regulating muscle contraction. Actin, a globular contractile protein, interacts with myosin for muscle contraction. The skeletal tissue appears striped or striated under a microscope due to the repeated arrangement of contractile proteins actin and myosin along the length of myofibrils. Dark A bands and light I bands repeat along myofibrils, and the alignment of myofibrils in the cell causes...

When the neuron of a motor unit fires an action potential, it triggers a series of events, leading to a twitch contraction in the muscle fibers. The process of excitation-contraction coupling is crucial in relaying the action potential to the muscle fibers.
The latent period of contraction marks the onset of excitation-contraction coupling, when the action potential propagates across the sarcolemma, preparing the muscle fibers for contraction. As the fibers enter the contraction phase, the...

Skeletal muscles are composed of a bundle of muscle fibers and are attached to bones through tendons. Each skeletal muscle fiber is a single muscle cell. The sarcolemma, the plasma membrane of a skeletal muscle cell, consists of a lipid bilayer and glycocalyx that supports muscle fibers. The sarcolemma extends into the muscle cells to form tubular structures called transverse or T-tubules. Each side of the T-tubules consists of a membrane-bound structure called the sarcoplasmic reticulum,...

Excitation-contraction coupling is a series of events that occur between generating an action potential and initiating a muscle contraction. It occurs at the triad, a structure found in skeletal muscle fibers that comprise a T-tubule and terminal cisternae of the sarcoplasmic reticulum on each side. These triads are visible in longitudinally sectioned muscle fibers. They are typically located at the A-I junction — the junction between the A and I bands of the sarcomere.
When an action...

The period of muscle contraction primarily influences the duration of stimulation at the neuromuscular junction (NMJ), the presence of free calcium ions in the sarcoplasm, and the availability of energy or ATP to support contractions.
When an action potential reaches the axon terminal, it depolarizes the membrane and opens voltage-gated sodium channels. Sodium ions enter the cell, further depolarizing the presynaptic membrane. This depolarization causes voltage-gated calcium channels to open....

As muscle contracts, the overlap between the thin and thick filaments increases, decreasing the length of the sarcomere—the contractile unit of the muscle—using energy in the form of ATP. At the molecular level, this is a cyclic, multistep process that involves binding and hydrolysis of ATP, and movement of actin by myosin.