Muscle fiber fast-twitch

Fast-twitch muscle fibers develop tension two to three times faster than slow-twitch muscle fibers because of more rapid splitting of ATP by myosin ATPase. This enables the myosin crossbridges to cycle more rapidly Another factor influencing the speed of contraction involves the rate of removal of calcium from the cytoplasm. Muscle fibers remove Ca++ ions by pumping them back into the sarcoplasmic reticulum. Fast-twitch muscle fibers remove Ca++ ions more rapidly than slow-twitch muscle fibers, resulting in quicker twitches that are useful in fast precise movements. The contractions generated in slow-twitch muscle fibers may last up to 10 times longer than those of fast-twitch muscle fibers therefore, these twitches are useful in sustained, more powerful movements. 

Fast-twitch muscle fibers have a high capacity for anaerobic glycolysis but are quick to fatigue. They are involved primarily in short-term, high-intensity exercise. Slow-twitch muscle fibers in arm and leg muscles are well vascularized and primarily oxidative. They are used during prolonged, low-to-moderate intensity exercise and resist fatigue. Slow-twitch fibers and the number of their mitochondria increase dramatically in trained endurance athletes. 

Two percent to 3% of the thiamin in nervous tissue is present as the triphosphate, which also occurs in significant amounts in skeletal muscle, especially in fast-twitch muscle fibers. In the nervous system, the triphosphate is found exclusively in the membrane fraction muscle thiamin triphosphate is mainly cytosoUc. There are two pathways for formation of thiamin triphosphate from the diphosphate ... 

When one examines muscle tissue that has been surgically removed, one finds two predominant types of muscle fibers. Fast twitch muscle fibers are large, relatively plump, pale cells. 

EXAMPLE 13.21 Type II muscle fibers are subdivided into type Ila and type Ilb. Type Ila can use both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism to produce ATP whereas type lib fibers use only anaerobic metabolism. In contrast to type I muscle fibers, type lib fibers contract rapidly after stimulation by a nerve impulse. They have evolved for short-lived, powerful contractions by the possession of characteristically active myosin ATPases and a dense packing of contractile filaments. So much of the cytoplasmic space is taken up with filaments that little exists for mitochondria. Similarly, these fibers are associated with a relatively poor blood supply. Type lib fibers are also known as white and fast-twitch muscle fibers and are adapted for short-lived but powerful contractions. The relative paucity of mitochondria and the poor blood supply impose obvious constraints on the generation of ATP during exercise. 

Exercise limitation and functional disability in COPD have a complex, multifactorial basis. Ventilatory limitation is caused by increased airways resistance, static and dynamic hyperinflation, increased elastic load to breathing, gas exchange disturbances, and mechanical disadvantage and/or weakness of the respiratory muscles (4-6). Car-diocirculatory disturbances (7,8), nutritional factors (9), and psychological factors, such as anxiety and fear, also contribute commonly to exercise intolerance. Skeletal muscle dysfunction is characterized by reductions in muscle mass (10,11), atrophy of type I (slow twitch, oxidative, endurance) (12,13) and type Ila (fast twitch) muscle fibers (14), altered myosin heavy chain expression (15), as well as reductions in fiber capillarization (16) and oxidative enzyme capacity (17,18). Such a dysfunction is another key factor that contributes... 

In summary, all mammals possess a large fraction of hlgh-oxl-datlve muscle. The ordered pattern of motor unit recruitment Involves these high oxidative muscle fibers before the low-oxldatlve fibers, as exercise Intensity progresses from mild, to moderate, to severe. This progression favors an enhanced exercise performance at submaxlmal exercise Intensities, since the slow and fast—twitch red fibers are capable of repeated contractions for long periods of time. 

Figure 2. The Influence of exercise intensity (treadmill running) on muscle cytochrome c content in the rat. Red vastus = fast-twitch red fiber section Soleus = slow-twitch red fiber section White vastus = fast-twitch white fiber section. "Reproduced with permission from Ref. 44. Copyright 1982, American Physiological Society. "...

Racay P, Gregory P, Schwaller B. Parvalbmnin deficiency in fast-twitch muscles leads to increased slow-twitch type mitochondria, but does not affect the expression of fiber specific proteins. FEBS J. 2006 273 96-108. 

Ila (fast-twitch oxidative) and type I (slow-twitch oxidative) muscle fibers have greater oxidative capacity and are less dependent on the cycle than type Ilb (fast-twitch glycolytic) fibers. Thus, gradual exercise programs that lead to production of a greater proportion of type Ila and type I fibers might improve exercise tolerance in AMP deaminase deficiency. 

Muscle fibers can be classified as either fast-twitch or slow-twitch. The slow-twitch fibers, or type 1 fibers (also called slow-oxidative), contain large amounts of mitochondria and myoglobin (giving them a red color), utilize respiration and oxidative phosphorylation for energy, and are relatively resistant to fatigue. Compared with fast-twitch fibers, their glycogen content is low. The slow-twitch fibers develop force slowly but maintain contractions longer than fast-twitch muscle. 

Metabolic fatigue also can occur once muscle glycogen is depleted. Muscle glycogen stores are used up in less than 2 minutes of anaerobic exercise. If you do pushups, you can prove this to yourself. The muscle used in pushups, a high-strength exercise, is principally fast-twitch glycolytic fibers. Time yourself from the start of your pushups. No matter how well you have trained, you probably cannot do pushups for as long as 2 minutes. Furthermore, you will feel the pain as the muscle pH drops as lactate production continues. 

Physiologically, type-1 fibers are considered to be slow-twitch and rather fatigne-resistant, while the type-2 fibers are fast-twitch and fast-fatiguing, as found in normal mammalian muscle [22, 23] and corroborated in human muscle [24, 25]. The designations slow-twitch and fast-twitch were introduced [4, 8, 9, 26] to distinguish the twitch properties of mammalian twitch-muscle fibers from amphibian non-twitch, extremely slow tonic fibers of the thigh adductor clasp muscles. 

The cells of the latter three types contain only a single nucleus and are called myocytes. The cells of skeletal muscle are long and multinucleate and are referred to as muscle fibers. At the microscopic level, skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle display alternating light and dark bands, and for this reason are often referred to as striated muscles. The different types of muscle cells vary widely in structure, size, and function. In addition, the times required for contractions and relaxations by various muscle types vary considerably. The fastest responses (on the order of milliseconds) are observed for fast-twitch skeletal... 

Skeletal muscle contains three types of fiber fast-twitch oxidative glycolytic (type 2A), fast-twitch glycolytic (type 2B), and slow-rwitch oxidative fibers (type 1). The proportion of each fiber type varies in different muscles. Different fiber types contain different isoforms of myosin, although there is no evidence that their mitochondria differ qualitatively. It has been reported that there are differences between subsarcolemmal mitochondria and those deeper in the same fiber but this has been questioned (see Sherratt et al., 1988 for references). 

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