BIOB34H3 Lecture Notes - Sliding Filament Theory, Muscle Fascicle, Titin
Document Summary
Animals are characterized by having 2 broad types of muscle tissues: striated muscles and smooth muscles. Striated muscles are characterized by having banding patterns. There are alternating light and dark bands on the cell. Smooth muscles and striated muscles are found in both vertebrates and invertebrates, but the way they"re distributed may be different. The striations that occur in striated muscles reflect the fact that the myofillaments (actin and myosin) are organized in a very regular way. In smooth muscles, the same proteins are present but they"re not organized in a regular fashion so you don"t get the bands. The basic building block of a muscle is a muscle cell which you see here. Muscle cells go by different names but the most important ones are myofibre or muscle fibre. Myofibre, a single muscle cell, is bound by a plasma membrane. In the muscle the plasma membrane is given the name sarcolemma.
