Where is intercalated discs found?
Intercalated discs are located at the longitudinal ends of cardiomyocyte to form cell–cell coupling critical in propagation of action potentials.
What muscles have intercalated discs?
Cardiac cells are special, amongst the muscle types, because they are connected to each other by intercalated discs – structures that are only found in cardiac muscle cells.
Which layer of the heart has intercalated discs?
myocardium
The myocardium is the muscular tissue responsible for the contraction of the heart, and intercalated discs are present in this layer (Sommer and Waugh 1978).
Which muscle tissue contains Myofilaments?
striated skeletal muscle
Types of muscle tissue are striated skeletal muscle and cardiac muscle, obliquely striated muscle (found in some invertebrates), and non-striated smooth muscle. Various arrangements of myofilaments create different muscles. Striated muscle has transverse bands of filaments.
Where are gap junctions found?
Gap junctions occur in virtually all tissues of the body, with the exception of adult fully developed skeletal muscle and mobile cell types such as sperm or erythrocytes. Gap junctions are not found in simpler organisms such as sponges and slime molds. A gap junction may also be called a nexus or macula communicans.
What type of muscle has branching cells?
Cardiac muscle
Cardiac muscle has branching fibers, one nucleus per cell, striations, and intercalated disks.
What is the myocardium made of?
The myocardium is the muscular layer of the heart. It consists of cardiac muscle cells (cardiac myocytes [also known as cardiac rhabdomyocytes] or cardiomyocytes) arranged in overlapping spiral patterns.
Which proteins are found in thin myofilaments?
The thin filament of contractile muscle contains actin, myosin, and troponin, a complex of three proteins.
Do all muscle cells have myofilaments?
numbers of tiny fibres (myofilaments) that provide the contractile power of muscles. Thus, while the normal muscle cell might have 2,000 myofilaments, the hypertrophied cell might have 4,000 myofilaments. The workload can now be divided evenly among twice as many myofilaments, and the muscle cell is capable of more…
What are gap junctions made of?
Gap junctions are plasma membrane spatial microdomains constructed of assemblies of channel proteins called connexins in vertebrates and innexins in invertebrates. The channels provide direct intercellular communication pathways allowing rapid exchange of ions and metabolites up to approximately 1 kD in size.
What is a gap junction in anatomy?
Gap junctions are aggregates of intercellular channels that permit direct cell–cell transfer of ions and small molecules. Initially described as low-resistance ion pathways joining excitable cells (nerve and muscle), gap junctions are found joining virtually all cells in solid tissues.