MYOGENESIS

• The formation of muscle tissues is known as Myogenesis.

• The myoblasts are the progenitor cells of the muscle tissue.
• During embryonic development, the myoblasts either divide mitotically
to give rise to more myoblasts or differentiate into Myocytes (muscle
cells).
• The primary job of muscles is to move the bones of the skeleton, but
muscles also enable the heart to beat and constitute the walls of other vital
hollow organs.
• Muscles make up the bulk of the body and account for 1/3 of its weight.
• Blood vessels and nerves run to every muscle, helping control and regulate
each muscle’s function
• The muscular system creates body heat and also moves the:
o Bones of the Skeletal system
o Food through Digestive system
o Blood through the Circulatory system
o Fluids through the Excretory system

TYPES OF MUSCLES:

1. CARDIAC MUSCLE
2. SMOOTH MUSCLE
3. SKELETAL MUSCLE
SKELETAL MUSCLE:
➢ Skeletal Muscle Anatomy: Muscle fibers (= individual muscle cells): • Multi-
nucleated (mitosis sans cytokinesis) • Sarcolemma (= plasma membrane +
collagen fibers) • Sarcoplasm (= cytoplasm;  mitochondria)
➢ Skeletal muscles attach to bones and have the main function of
contracting to facilitate movement of our skeletons.
➢ Known as striated muscles due to their appearance .The cause of this
'stripy' appearance is the bands of Actin and Myosin which form the
Sarcomere, found within the MYOFIBRILS.
➢ Skeletal muscles are voluntary muscles because we have direct control
over them through our nervous system.
➢ Skeletal muscles are able to stretch or contract and still return to their
original shape.
➢ In skeletal muscles that work with tendons to pull on bones, the collagen in
the three connective tissue layers intertwines with the collagen of a tendon
➢ At the other end of the tendon, it fuses with the Periosteum (coating the
bone). The tension created by contraction of the muscle fibers is then
transferred though the connective tissue layers, to the tendon, and then to
the periosteum to pull on the bone for movement of the skeleton.
➢ Every skeletal muscle is also richly supplied by blood vessels for
nourishment, oxygen delivery, and waste removal.
➢ In addition, every muscle fiber in a skeletal muscle is supplied by the axon
branch of a somatic motor neuron, which signals the fiber to contract.
➢ Unlike cardiac and smooth muscle, the only way to functionally contract a
skeletal muscle is through signaling from the nervous system.
COMPOSITION OF SKELETAL MUSCLE:

• Skeletal muscle tissue is highly organized and arranged in long bundles

of cylindrical muscle fiber.

• The muscle fiber vary in size, shape, and arrangement, from being small,
broad, and parallel to being large, narrow, and oblique.

• Each skeletal muscle is organized into hundreds to thousands of muscle

fibers working together as a unit.
• There are different layers of connective tissue surrounding each layer of
muscle. The outermost part of the muscle is surrounded by a connective
tissue sheath termed epimysium Around each bundle of muscle fibers lies
the perimysium (a.k.a. fascia) and surrounding each muscle fiber lies
the endomysium .

• Skeletal fiber are striated in appearance corresponding to the repeated

units of actin and myosin filaments organized into sarcomeres seen as
distinct Z lines under a microscope.

• There is an abundance of mitochondria, myoglobin, and glycogen storage

located in the cytoplasm of skeletal myocytes. This is due to the high
energy requirement necessary to generate the force needed for
movement.
SKELETAL MUSCLE FIBRE:

i. The plasma membrane of muscle fibers is called the sarcolemma ,

ii. The cytoplasm is referred to as sarcoplasm and the specialized smooth
endoplasmic reticulum, which stores, releases, and retrieves calcium ions
(Ca++) is called the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR)
iii. The functional unit of a skeletal muscle fiber is the sarcomere, a highly
organized arrangement of the contractile Myo filaments actin (thin
filament) and myosin (thick filament), along with other support proteins.

CARDIAC MUSCLE:
• The second type is cardiac muscle, making up the walls of the heart.
• It is part of both the Muscular System and the Circulatory System.

• It is responsible for circulating blood throughout the body. It has its own
pacemaker for rhythmic beating.
• These inner and outer layers of the heart, respectively, surround the
cardiac muscle tissue and separate it from the blood and other organs.
• Cardiac muscle is made from sheets of cardiac muscle cells. These cells,
unlike skeletal muscle cells, are typically unicellular and connect to one
another through special intercalated discs

Intercalated discs; it is a specialized cell junction and the arrangement of

muscle cells that enables cardiac muscle to contract quickly and repeatedly,
forcing blood throughout the body.

• It possesses contractile units known as sarcomeres; this feature, however,

also distinguishes it from smooth muscle, the third muscle type.
Cardiac Muscle Structure:

• Cardiac muscle exists only within the heart of animals. It is a specialized

form of muscle evolved to continuously and repeatedly contract, providing
circulation of blood throughout the body.
• Cardiac muscle contains more mitochondria than skeletal muscle cells

The heart wall is composed of three layers

Epicardium: The outermost layer of tissue

Myocardium: The middle layer of tissue, made of muscle

Endocardium: The tissue lining the inside of the heart and valves

Pericardium: is the sac in which the heart sits.

SMOOTH MUSCLE:
• Smooth muscle is one of three types of muscle tissue,
alongside cardiac and skeletal muscle. It is a non-striated muscle tissue,
lacking the characteristic markings of the other muscle types.
• Smooth muscle that shows no cross stripes under microscopic
magnification. It consists of narrow spindle-shaped cells with a single,
centrally located nucleus.
• Smooth muscles are essential for the body because they have many
different complicated and vital tasks in the body.
• Smooth muscle are present in inner organs walls like bladder,
intestine, stomach, blood vessels etc. excluding the heart.
• . It is involuntary in action
Structure of Smooth Muscle:
• Smooth muscle differs from striated muscle in many ways. T-tubules,
myofibrils and sarcomeres are all absent, in contrast to striated
muscle.
• Actin and myosin contractile proteins are present, as are thick and
thin filaments.
• However, these are arranged differently. Thin filaments are attached
to a dense body
• Smooth muscles lack the sarcomeres, which are present in skeletal
muscles.
• It also lacks troponin C but has calmodulin (protein in eukaryotic
cells) to which calcium ions bind to forming the Ca2+– calmodulin
complex that activates the myosin kinase

TROPOMYOSIN;

• Tropomyosin is one of the proteins involved in the troponin

complex, a team-based relationship between tropomyosin and
troponin filaments that allow the skeletal muscle to expand
and contract at certain times. Activated by calcium, troponin
proteins push tropomyosin filaments out of the way, thus
enabling actin and myosin proteins to make contact and cause
the muscle to contract.

WORKING OF SMOOTH MUSCLES

• The smooth muscle fibers group in branching bundles. As
opposed to skeletal muscle fibers these bundles do not run
strictly parallel and ordered but consist in a complex system.
Thus the cells can contract much stronger than striated
musculature. The actin filaments are stretched between dense
bodies in the cytoplasm and attachment plaques at the cell
membrane. The myosin filaments lie between the actin
filaments. Furthermore intermediate filaments such as desmin
and vimentin support the cell structure.

NEUROMUSCULAR JUNCTION:
I. A neuromuscular junction (NMJ), also called a myo neural junction, is the
connection between a motor neurons and a muscle fibers.
II. It is a key component in the body’s ability to produce and control movement.
III. These neurons are the site at which the neuron transmits a signal from the
brain to the muscle fiber, causing it to contract.

Structure of a Neuromuscular Junction

The anatomy of a neuromuscular junction can be divided into three parts:

• the presynaptic terminal (i.e. the motor neuron)

• the synaptic cleft
• the postsynaptic membrane (i.e. the membrane of the muscle cell).
PRESYNAPTIC TERMINAL
(MOTOR NEURON)

• A motor neuron has a dendritic end and an axonal end. The dendrites
receive the signals from adjacent neurons, whereas the axon is where the
signal is passed on to the next neuron or cell.
• The presynaptic terminal of a neuromuscular junction refers to the axonal
terminal of a motor neuron. Motor neurons are the neurons that directly
control effector organs, in this case, muscle cells. This axon terminal end is
the presynaptic terminal of a neuromuscular junction.
• When seen by light microscope, look like small knobs and contain many
organelles. The most numerous of these are synaptic vesicles.
Synaptic vesicles:
• These vesicles contain neurotransmitters, which are chemical messengers
that are responsible for the transmission of the message. In the case of the
neuromuscular junction, the neurotransmitter is acetylcholine (Ach).
• Synaptic vesicles are often clumped in areas of the terminal membrane that
appear to be thickened. The thickened areas are called active zones.

SYNAPTIC CLEFT:
• The synaptic cleft is a junction or small gap at which neurons communicate with
each other.
• The synapse is a specialized connection between cells that enables
communication between neurons within the central nervous system (CNS) or
between a neuron and an effector cell (such as another neuron, muscle cell, or
gland cell) in the peripheral nervous system (PNS).
• In nerve-muscle junctions the synaptic cleft contains a structure called
the basal lamina, which holds an enzyme that destroys neurotransmitters and
thus regulates the amount that reaches the postsynaptic receptors on the
receiving cell
• It regulates the amount that reaches the postsynaptic receptors on the
receiving cell.
POSTSYNAPTIC MEMBRANE:

• The postsynaptic membrane is the membrane of the muscle fiber cells to

which the signal is travelling.
• The postsynaptic membrane is the site at which the neurotransmitter will
interact with a receptor.
• Depending on which receptors they interact with, various
neurotransmitters are capable of generating a diverse range of excitatory
or inhibitory postsynaptic actions.
• This membrane has many indents that increase the surface area of the
membrane, which is important for the transmission of the signal from the
motor neuron.
• Additionally, the muscle cells have a specialized cell membrane, called the
sarcolemma, that aids in the transmission of signals throughout the fiber.
• There is one neuromuscular junction associated with each muscle fiber, and
it is typically located near the middle of the fiber. This means that the motor
end plate will also be located near the midpoint of the muscle fiber.
NEUROMUSCULAR TRANSMISSION:

• The definition of neuromuscular transmission is the information flow from

the motor nerve ending to the muscle fiber via the neuromuscular junction.
It is the process by which the motor nerve impulses start the contraction of
the muscles.

The neuromuscular junction experiences a number of events throughout this

process

Events include:

1. Acetylcholine release

2. Acetylcholine’s action

3. Increasing endplate potential

4. Potential for a miniature endplate development

5. Acetylcholine is destroyed

Acetylcholine release:
• The signal from the axon terminal of the previous neuron travels down the
motor neuron to the presynaptic axon terminal.
• This causes the activation and opening of calcium channels in the
membrane, allowing calcium ions to enter the neuron.
• This forces the synaptic vesicles to move and fuse with the presynaptic
membrane and result in the bursting of the vesicles.
• Acetylcholine is now released from the ruptured vesicles. Acetylcholine
diffuses through the presynaptic membrane and enters the synaptic cleft
through the process of exocytosis.
Acetylcholine’s action:

• Acetylcholine floods the synaptic cleft, where it can reach the postsynaptic
membrane by diffusion.
• Acetylcholine binds to acetylcholine receptors, also called nicotinic
acetylcholine receptors. These are present in the many folds of the
postsynaptic membrane (the sarcolemma).
• By opening the ligand-gated sodium channels, it increases the postsynaptic
membrane’s permeability for sodium
• Sodium ions from ECF pass through these channels and enter the
neuromuscular junction.
• Sodium ions change the electrical potential and create the endplate
potential.

Increasing end plate potential:

• End plate potential is the shift in resting membrane potential that occurs at
the neuromuscular junction as a result of an impulse. End plate potential is
the result of a slight depolarization that happens when sodium ions enter
the inside.

Potential for a miniature endplate development:

• Miniature endplate potential, which develops when a small amount of
acetylcholine is released from the axon terminal, is a weak endplate
potential in the neuromuscular junction.
• The miniature endplate potentials are eventually added together to
produce endplate potential, which results in an action potential in the
muscle.

Acetylcholine is destroyed
• Acetyl cholinesterase enzyme quickly destroys the acetylcholine released
into the synaptic cleft
• It stops the muscle fiber from being excited repeatedly and enables the
muscle to relax.

Neuromuscular Junction chart:

➢ Nerve impulse or action potential
➢ Opening of voltage-gated calcium channels
➢ Influx of calcium ions inside the cell increases
➢ Opening/rupture of vesicle and release of acetylcholine
➢ Acetylcholine comes to the synaptic cleft
➢ Acetylcholine binds with nicotinic receptors to form the acetylcholine-receptor
complex
➢ Opening of ligand-gated sodium channels
➢ Influx of sodium ions inside the cell increases
➢ Development of endplate potential
➢ Generate muscle action potential
➢ Muscle contraction takes place
MOTOR UNIT:

A motor unit, the functional unit of muscle contraction, is a single motor nerve
and the associated muscle fibers that are innervated upon stimulation from the
nerve

• Motor Pool: A collection of motor units.

• Motor Unit: A grouping of a motor neuron and the muscle fibers
innervated by it.
The motor neuron consists of three components; a cell body (soma), dendrites,
and an axon.

• The cell body, or soma, is located in the spinal cord. It maintains the neuron’s
structure, carries genetic information, and provides energy to drive the cell’s
activities. The soma also contains a nucleus as well as specialized organelles.
• Dendrites are branch-like extensions found at the ends of the neuron. They are
responsible for receiving, processing, and transferring signals from other neurons
to the cell body.
• An axon, also known as a nerve fiber, is a long extension of the neuron
responsible for carrying impulses away from the cell body and produce
movement, etc. The axons themselves are enclosed in a myelin sheath, which
increases the speed of the impulse. The thicker this sheath is, the faster the
impulse is.

Motor neurons carry information away from the CNS, they are also known
as efferent neurons.

Motor neurons can also be divided into two categories; upper motor neurons and
lower motor neurons. The upper motor neurons are confined to the central
nervous system and responsible for initiating voluntary movement. The lower
motor neurons are the efferent neurons of the peripheral nervous system. They
connect the central nervous system with the innervated muscle fibers. Together,
they form a complex system that controls both voluntary and involuntary
movements in the human body.

• A motor neuron carries information from the central nervous system to the
muscles.
• Each motor neuron is attached to a group of muscle fibers and it sends an
electrical impulse that stimulates all of these fibers to contract at once.
• This is none as the All or None law – either ALL the muscle fibers (within
one motor unit) contracts or none of them …
• Like, a light switch, it’s either on or off.
• The second component of the motor unit is the muscle fibers. As you have
just learned these fibers are innervated by the motor neuron.
• The primary function of a muscle fiber is muscle contraction. The fibers
contract , making our muscles shorter in length, which in turn moves our
joints.
• It is important to know that when the motor neuron signals for the muscle
fibers to contract, it is not the entire muscle that contracts, just the muscle
fibers that are innervated by that specific motor neuron.