Cross sections, muscle

Gurney JM, Jelliffe DB Arm anthropometry in nutritional assessment normograms for rapid calculation of muscle circumference and cross sectional muscle and fat mass. Am J Clin Nutr 26 912-915,1973. 

Airway cross-sections have the nominal anatomy shown in Fig. 5.16. Airway surface liquid (AST), primarily composed of mucus gel and water, surrounds the airway lumen with a thickness thought to vary from 5 to 10 mm. AST lies on the apical surface of airway epithelial cells (mostly columnar ciliated epithelium). This layer of cells, roughly two to three cells thick in proximal airways and eventually thinning to a single cell thickness in distal airways, rests along a basement membrane on its basal surface. Connective tissue (collagen fibers, basement membranes, elastin, and water) lies between the basement membrane and airway smooth muscle. Edema occurs when the volume of water within the connective tissue increases considerably. Interspersed within the smooth muscle are respiratory supply vessels (capillaries, arteriovenous anastomoses), nerves, and lymphatic vessels. 

FIGURE 17.12 Electron micrograph of a skeletal muscle myofibril (in longitndinal section). The length of one sarcomere is indicated, as are the A and I bands, the H zone, the M disk, and the Z lines. Cross-sections from the H zone show a hexagonal array of thick filaments, whereas the I band cross-section shows a hexagonal array of thin filaments. (Photo courtesy of Hugh Huxley, Brandeis University)... 

First, in the striated muscles, the cross-sectional organization of filaments is highly ordered in a hexagonal pattern commensurate with the ratio of actin to myosin filaments and the distribution of active myosin heads, S-1 segments, helically every 60 degrees around the myosin filament. In smooth muscle, with perhaps 13 actin filaments per myosin filament, many actin filaments appear to be ranked in layers around myosin filaments. It is not known how the more distant actin filaments participate in contraction. 

Figure 3. Structure of a muscle sarcomere. In a polarizing microscope muscle appears to have dark (A) and light (I) bands. The l-band region only contains thin filaments. The A-band region contains both thick and thin filaments. One sarcomere is the distance between two Z-lines. In cross section, the hexagonal packing of the thick and thin filaments can be seen.

Figure 8. (Continued). As described above, the packing of myosin molecules into the thick filament is such that a layer of heads is seen every 14.3 nm, and this reflection is thought to derive from this packing. Off the meridian the 42.9 nm myosin based layer line is shown. This arises from the helical pitch of the thick filament, due to the way in which the myosin molecules pack into the filament. The helical pitch is 42.9 nm. c) Meridional reflections from actin. Actin based layer lines can be seen at 35.5 nm, 5.9 nm and 5.1 nm (1st, 6th, and 7th layer lines)and they all arise from the various helical repeats along the thin filament. Only the 35.5 nm layer line is shown here.The 5.9 nm and 5.1 nm layer lines arise from the monomeric repeat. The 35.5 nm layer line arises from the long pitch helical repeat and is roughly equivalent to seven actin monomers. A meridional spot at 2.8 nm can also be seen, d) The equatorial reflections, 1,0 and 1,1 which arise from the spacings between crystal planes seen in cross section of muscle.

Histopathological examination shows the typical corelike lesions in a high proportion of muscle fibers in older patients this may amount to 100%. Most typically the cores are large and centrally-placed, but multiple cores may occur in the same fiber cross section. Most older patients show a striking predominance of type 1 (slow twitch oxidative) fibers and virtually all fibers with cores are type 1. Sometimes younger family members have more normal proportions of type 1 and type 2 fibers but, again, the cores are confined to the type 1 fibers. It is well established that muscle fiber types can interconvert due to altered physiological demands, and it is likely that fibers with cores convert to a basically slow twitch-oxidative metabolism to compensate for the fact that up to 50% of their cross sectional area may be devoid of mitochondria. 

FIG. 4. Ultrastructure of vascular smooth muscle of the rabbit inferior vena cava revealed with electron microscopy. Serial cross-sections of VSMCs are shown in series 1 (panel A—D) and series 2 (panel E—G). Series 1 illustrates the close spatial apposition between the superficial SR sheet and the PM with the apices of the caveolae perforating through the superficial SR sheets to come into contact with the bulk cytoplasm. The membranes of the PM (dotted line) and the SR (solid line) in panel A-D are outlined to the right of the respective panels. The close apposition between the superficial SR sheet, the PM and the neck region of the caveolae creates a narrow and expansive restricted space. Series 2 illustrates the perpendicular sheets of SR, which appear to arise from the superficial SR sheets. Mitochondria also come into close contact with the perpendicular SR sheets. Panel H contains a stylized illustration of the close association between the superficial SR sheet, which is continuous with the perpendicular sheet, the perforating caveolae (C), the PM and a mitochondrion (M). Panel I shows calyculin-A mediated dissociation of the superficial SR sheets from the PM (see arrows). The black scale bar indicated represents 200 nm of distance. 

Figure 8.1 (A) Cross-sectional view of the organization of the small intestine, illustrating the serosa, the longitudinal and circular muscle layers (=muscularis externa), the submucosa, and the intestinal mucosa. The intestinal mucosa consists of four layers, the inner surface cell monolayer of enterocytes, the basal membrane, the lamina propria (connective tissue, blood capillaries), and the muscularis mucosae, (B) Schematic representation of an enterocyte (small intestinal epithehal cell) (according to Tso and Crissinger [151], with permission).

Fig. 2. Macroscopic and microscopic structure of muscle (a) Entire muscle and its cross-section with fatty septa, (b) Fascicle with several muscle fibres (cells). A layer of fat along the fascicle is indicated, (c) Striated myofibre corresponding with one single muscle cell containing several nuclei. The lengths of a myofibre can be several tens of centimetres, (d) Myofibril inside a myocyte. It is one contractile element and contains actin and myosin and further proteins important for the muscular function, (e) Electron myograph of human skeletal muscle showing the band structure caused by the contractile myofilaments in the sarcomeres. One nucleus (Nu) and small glycogen granules (arrow, size <0.1 pm) are indicated.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging on whole body units provides visualization of tissue inside slices with a thickness of several millimetres. The spatial resolution in the plain is often better than one millimetre so that even relatively small structures can be well depicted. However, the spatial resolution is not sufficient to resolve the microscopic structures mentioned in Section 2. Only the cross-sections of single muscles and septa from fatty tissue or cormective tissue can be visualized in MR images recorded from humans in vivo. 

X 11 X 20) mm. (a) Cross-section of the human lower leg of a volunteer. Two volume elements in musculature and one voxel inside the tibial bone marrow are indicated, (b) Spectrum recorded from the tibialis anterior (TA) muscle shows low lipid content of approximately 1% volume fraction, (c) Spectrum from the soleus (SOL) muscle indicates higher lipid content than in TA. (d) Spectrum from yellow bone marrow with dominating signal from fatty acids in triglycerides. 

Fig. 29. Thirteen-year-old boy with Duchenne Dystrophy, (a) The fat selective image shows a fatty degeneration of all muscles in a cross-section of the lower limb. The fat tissue is orientated in the direction of the muscle fibres, and is present between the fibres and in the septa, (b, c) The spectra from both volume elements indicated in (a) reveal signals from EMCL. Muscle specific metabolites (TMA and creatine) are clearly reduced and not visible in the proton spectra due to the reduction of muscle tissue in favour of adipose tissue.

Fig. 31. Twenty-year-old woman with glutaric aciduria type I. (a) The Ti weighted image shows normal findings for the cross-section of the lower limb. The volume element for spectroscopy was chosen in the soleus muscle, (b) The 7-fold magnification depicts a reduction of TMA. Although no fatty degeneration is visible on the image, the spectrum is dominated by EMCL.

Strength training involves movement of muscles against an increasing load which is performed in sets and then repeated with fixed rest intervals. In response, the cross-sectional area of muscle increases due to an increase in the number of myofibrils within a fibre. 

Fig. 7.4 Top) Dil-positive stem cells (red) in the midmyocardium of the anterolateral wall. Middle) a-Smooth muscle actin staining with FITC green) showing cross-section of vessel wall. Bottom) Stained areas show colocalization yellow) of stem cells and smooth muscle cells, suggesting transformation of stem cells into smooth muscle cells. The vessel shown is in the myocardial interstitium. Arrows point to vessel media. Reprinted from [63]...

Electron micrograph of a striated muscle sarcomere showing the appearance of filamentous structures when cross-sectioned at the locations illustrated below. (Electron micrograph courtesy of Dr. Hugh Huxley, Brandeis University.)... 

Although much of the focus has been on the DPC of striated muscle, it is likely that desmin attachments to dense plaques of smooth muscle play critical roles in regulating the transmission of contractile forces in this tissue as well. This is particularly relevant in light of the observed defects in smooth muscle of desmin-deficient mice, in which active force per cross-sectional area was reduced to 40% of controls of smooth muscle tissue (Sjuve et al, 1998). IFAP candidates for serving this linking function are plectin and other components of the actin-rich cortex, including calponin (which also plays a role in the cytoplasm of smooth muscle cell dense bodies see below), and the spectrin/ankyrin complex. 

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