Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Although the structure and function is basically the same in smooth muscle cells in different organs, their specific effects or end-functions differ. The contractile function of vascular smooth muscle regulates the lumenal diameter of the small arteries-arterioles called resistance arteries , thereby contributing significantly to setting the ...
Vascular smooth muscle cells also play important roles during development, e.g. driving osteocyte differentiation from undifferentiated precursors during osteogenesis. [1] Arteries have a great deal more smooth muscle within their walls than veins, thus their greater wall thickness. This is because they have to carry pumped blood away from the ...
In the skin, smooth muscle cells such as those of the arrector pili cause hair to stand erect in response to cold temperature or fear. [19] Smooth muscle cells are spindle-shaped with wide middles, and tapering ends. They have a single nucleus and range from 30 to 200 micrometers in length. This is thousands of times shorter than skeletal ...
Three distinct types of muscle (L to R): Smooth (non-striated) muscle in internal organs, cardiac or heart muscle, and skeletal muscle. There are three distinct types of muscle: skeletal muscle, cardiac or heart muscle, and smooth (non-striated) muscle. Muscles provide strength, balance, posture, movement, and heat for the body to keep warm. [3]
The structure and function is basically the same in smooth muscle cells in different organs, but the inducing stimuli differ substantially, in order to perform individual actions in the body at individual times. In addition, the glomeruli of the kidneys contain smooth muscle-like cells called mesangial cells.
Smooth muscle tissue is mostly made of actin and myosin, [3] two proteins that interact together to produce muscle contraction and relaxation. Myosin II, also known as conventional myosin, has two heavy chains that consist of the head and tail domains and four light chains (two per head) that bind to the heavy chains in the “neck” region.
The smooth muscle of the blood vessels reacts to the stretching of the muscle by opening ion channels, which cause the muscle to depolarize, leading to muscle contraction. This significantly reduces the volume of blood able to pass through the lumen, which reduces blood flow through the blood vessel.
The muscle fiber cells are arranged in 5 to 7 layers of circular and longitudinal smooth muscle with about 50μ in length and contain well-marked, rod-shaped nuclei, which are often slightly curved. Separating the tunica media from the outer tunica externa in larger arteries is the external elastic membrane (also called the external elastic ...