The mechanism of spontaneous oscillatory contractions in skeletal muscle.
Most striated muscles generate steady contractile tension when activated, but some preparations, notably cardiac myocytes and slow-twitch fibers, may show spontaneous oscillatory contractions (SPOC) at low levels of activation. We have provided what we believe is new evidence that SPOC is a property of the contractile system at low actin-myosin affinity, whether caused by a thin-filament regulatory system or by other means. We present a quantitative single-sarcomere model for isotonic SPOC in skeletal muscle with three basic ingredients: i), actin and myosin filaments initially in partial overlap, ii), stretch activation by length-dependent changes in the lattice spacing, and iii), viscoelastic passive tension. Modeling examples are given for slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers, with periods of 10 s and 4 s respectively. Isotonic SPOC occurs in a narrow domain of parameter values, with small minimum and maximum values for actin-myosin affinity, a minimum amount of passive tension, and a maximum transient response rate that explains why SPOC is favored in slow-twitch fibers. The model also predicts the contractile, relaxed and SPOC phases as a function of phosphate and ADP levels. The single-sarcomere model can also be applied to a whole fiber under auxotonic and fixed-end conditions if the remaining sarcomeres are treated as a viscoelastic load. Here the model predicts an upper limit for the load stiffness that leads to SPOC; this limit lies above the equivalent loads expected from the rest of the fiber.
Department of Zoology, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia.
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D000199:Actins / Q000378:metabolism; D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D004548:Elasticity; D008954:Models, Biological; D009119:Muscle Contraction; D018656:Muscle Fibers, Fast-Twitch / Q000502:physiology; D018657:Muscle Fibers, Slow-Twitch / Q000502:physiology; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology*; D009218:Myosins / Q000378:metabolism; D010507:Periodicity; D051381:Rats; D012518:Sarcomeres / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D055682:Viscoelastic Substances
D000199:Actins; D055682:Viscoelastic Substances; D009218:Myosins