Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T10:57:57.524Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Three Dimensional Organization of Smooth Muscle: Information from Serial Section Reconstructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

R.A. Horowitz ,
C.M. Powers ,
P. Valero  and
R. Craig
R.A. Horowitz
Affiliation:
Department of Cell Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, 01655
C.M. Powers
Affiliation:
Department of Cell Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, 01655
P. Valero
Affiliation:
Department of Cell Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, 01655
R. Craig
Affiliation:
Department of Cell Biology, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA, 01655
Get access

Extract

Smooth muscle is a machine consisting of working and supporting elements whose structure and 3D organization must be elucidated for the mechanics of shortening and tension generation to be understood. Based on longitudinal and serial transverse sections of rabbit portal vein it was suggested that the contractile elements of smooth muscle formed “mini-sarcomeres”, analogous to skeletal muscle, containing parallel arrays of 3-5 myosin filaments 1.6-2.2 um long. Observations at the light microscopic level were consistent with this idea. The past decade has seen little further investigation into the in situ ultrastructure of this or other smooth muscles, and the general applicability of these findings remains unknown. We have taken advantage of recent methodological advances, which can provide full 3D computer representations of cellular organization based on EM data, using guinea pig taenia coli muscle as a model system.

Serial transverse sections (Fig 1) were used to generate 3D reconstructions of the organization of the myosin filaments and their relation to dense bodies, actin bundles, mitochondria and other organelles.

Type
Unique Approaches in Imaging, Computation and Communication for Characterization of the 3D Cell & Organelles I
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 4 , Issue S2: Proceedings: Microscopy & Microanalysis '98, Microscopy Society of America 56th Annual Meeting, Microbeam Analysis Society 32nd Annual Meeting, Atlanta, Georgia July 12-16, 1998 , July 1998 , pp. 438 - 439
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References:

1.Somlyo, et al. In, The Biochemistry of Smooth Muscle Contraction, Stephens, NL, Ed. University Park Press, Baltimore, MD. 1977Google Scholar
2.Kargacin, G.J. et al. Journal of Cell Biology 108 (1989) 1465–1475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3.Bagby, R.International Review of Cytology 105 (1986) 67–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4.Fay, F.S. et al. Journal of Cell Biology 96 (1983) 783–795.CrossRefGoogle Scholar