CURRENT BASIC AND PATHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE FUNCTION OF MUSCLE CELLS AND TISSUES – FROM MOLECULES TO HUMANS Edited by Haruo Sugi Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/3003 Edited by Haruo Sugi Contributors Haruo Sugi, Hiroki Minoda, Takuya Miyakawa, Suguru Tanokura, Shigeru Chaen, Takakazu Kobayashi, Larissa Lipskaia, Isabelle Limon, Regis Bobe , Roger Hajjar, Ricardo Espinosa-Tanguma, Paola Algara-Suárez, Rebeca Mejía-Elizondo, Víctor Saavedra-Alanís, Paul Fransen, Cor E. Van Hove, Johanna van Langen, Hidde Bult, Maoxian Deng, Lixia Deng, Yarong Xue, Marcelo J. Alfonzo, Fabiola Placeres-Uray, Walid Hassan-Soto, Adolfo Borges, Ramona González de Alfonzo, Itala Lippo de Becemberg, Saima Salim, Sharique A. Ali, Shintaro Nakano, Toshihiro Muramatsu, Shigeyuki Nishimura, Takaaki Senbonmatsu, Valérie Metzinger-Le Meuth, Eléonore M'Baya- Moutoula, Fatiha Taibi, Ziad Massy, Laurent Metzinger, Ho-Chang Kuo, Wei-Chiao Chang, Hafidh I. Al-Sadi, J.M. Ramírez, J.J. Salazar, R. de Hoz, B. Rojas, B.I. Gallego, A.I. Ramírez, A. Triviño, Carla Máximo Prado, Edna Aparecida Leick, Fernanda Degobbi Tenório Quirino dos Santos Lopes, Milton A. Martins, Iolanda de Fátima Lopes Calvo Tibério, Sho Shinohara, Satoko Shinohara, Takanori Kihara, Jun Miyake, Angel Vodenicharov, Canan G. Nebigil, Shiro Mizuno, Hirohisa Toga and Takeshi Ishizaki Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2012 InTech All chapters are Open Access distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles even for commercial purposes, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications. After this work has been published by InTech, authors have the right to republish it, in whole or part, in any publication of which they are the author, and to make other personal use of the work. Any republication, referencing or personal use of the work must explicitly identify the original source. Notice Statements and opinions expressed in the chapters are these of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of the editors or publisher. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the published chapters. The publisher assumes no responsibility for any damage or injury to persons or property arising out of the use of any materials, instructions, methods or ideas contained in the book. Publishing Process Manager Sandra Bakic Typesetting InTech Prepress, Novi Sad Cover InTech Design Team First published July, 2012 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from orders@intechopen.com Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans, Edited by Haruo Sugi p. cm. ISBN 978-953-51-0679-1 Contents Preface IX Section 1 Contractile and Regulatory Mechanisms of Contraction in Skeletal, Cardiac and Smooth Muscle Cells 1 Chapter 1 The Gas Environmental Chamber as a Powerful Tool to Study Structural Changes of Living Muscle Thick Filaments Coupled with ATP Hydrolysis 3 Haruo Sugi, Hiroki Minoda, Takuya Miyakawa, Suguru Tanokura, Shigeru Chaen and Takakazu Kobayashi Chapter 2 Calcium Cycling in Synthetic and Contractile Phasic or Tonic Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells 27 Larissa Lipskaia, Isabelle Limon, Regis Bobe and Roger Hajjar Chapter 3 The Role of Sodium-Calcium Exchanger in the Calcium Homeostasis of Airway Smooth Muscle 45 Ricardo Espinosa-Tanguma, Paola Algara-Suárez, Rebeca Mejía-Elizondo and Víctor Saavedra-Alanís Chapter 4 Contraction by Ca 2+ Influx via the L-Type Ca 2+ Channel Voltage Window in Mouse Aortic Segments is Modulated by Nitric Oxide 69 Paul Fransen, Cor E. Van Hove, Johanna van Langen and Hidde Bult Chapter 5 MAP Kinase-Mediated and MLCK-Independent Phosphorylation of MLC20 in Smooth Muscle Cells 93 Maoxian Deng, Lixia Deng and Yarong Xue Chapter 6 Two Guanylylcyclases Regulate the Muscarinic Activation of Airway Smooth Muscle 113 Marcelo J. Alfonzo, Fabiola Placeres-Uray, Walid Hassan-Soto, Adolfo Borges, Ramona González de Alfonzo and Itala Lippo de Becemberg Chapter 7 Melanophores: Smooth Muscle Cells in Disguise 133 Saima Salim and Sharique A. Ali VI Contents Section 2 Pathological Aspects of Cardiac and Smooth Muscle Cells 159 Chapter 8 Cardiomyocyte and Heart Failure 161 Shintaro Nakano, Toshihiro Muramatsu, Shigeyuki Nishimura and Takaaki Senbonmatsu Chapter 9 Implication of MicroRNAs in the Pathophysiology of Cardiac and Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells 183 Valérie Metzinger-Le Meuth, Eléonore M'Baya-Moutoula, Fatiha Taibi, Ziad Massy and Laurent Metzinger Chapter 10 Cardiovascular Lesions of Kawasaki Disease: From Genetic Study to Clinical Management 207 Ho-Chang Kuo and Wei-Chiao Chang Chapter 11 Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells and the Comparative Pathology of Atherosclerosis 233 Hafidh I. Al-Sadi Chapter 12 Choroidal Vessel Wall: Hypercholesterolaemia-Induced Dysfunction and Potential Role of Statins 255 J.M. Ramírez, J.J. Salazar, R. de Hoz, B. Rojas, B.I. Gallego, A.I. Ramírez and A. Triviño Section 3 Factors Influencing Structure and Function of Smooth Muscle Cells and Tissues 299 Chapter 13 Different Modulators of Airways and Distal Lung Parenchyma Contractile Responses in the Physiopathology of Asthma 301 Carla Máximo Prado, Edna Aparecida Leick, Fernanda Degobbi Tenório Quirino dos Santos Lopes, Milton A. Martins and Iolanda de Fátima Lopes Calvo Tibério Chapter 14 Regulation of Differentiated Phenotypes of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells 331 Sho Shinohara, Satoko Shinohara, Takanori Kihara and Jun Miyake Chapter 15 Structure and Function of Smooth Muscle with Special Reference to Mast Cells 345 Angel Vodenicharov Chapter 16 Role of Prokineticin in Epicardial Progenitor Cell Differentiation to Regenerate Heart 363 Canan G. Nebigil Chapter 17 Hypoxic Pulmonary Vascular Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation 379 Shiro Mizuno, Hirohisa Toga and Takeshi Ishizaki Preface This volume consists of 17 short review articles, originally submitted to the Editor under the theme of “Muscle Cell”. Muscles are classified into three types, skeletal, cardiac and smooth muscles, according to their structure and function. In vertebrate animals including humans, skeletal muscle produces body movement, cardiac muscle is responsible for the heart function as a pump, and smooth muscle is distributed among various visceral organs and blood vessels to keep the animals alive. In all kinds of muscle, mechanical activity results from relative sliding of actin and myosin filaments coupled with ATP hydrolysis, though the mechanism of the myofilament sliding still remains to be a matter for debate and speculation. On the other hand, the mechanical activity of muscle is controlled by changes in the intracellular concentration of free Ca 2+ ions. In skeletal muscle, contraction is initiated by the release of Ca 2+ ions from the intracellular membranous structure, sarcoplasmic reticulum, while in cardiac muscle contraction is mainly coupled with influx of Ca 2+ ions from the extracellular space. In smooth muscles, the origin of Ca 2+ ions activating contraction, i.e. activator Ca 2+ , is variable and is not yet fully understood, reflecting the complex structure of smooth muscle tissues. Fifty years ago, smooth muscles were sometimes called “headache muscle” because of extreme technical difficulties in studying their function. As the readers will become aware, considerable progress has now been achieved on the research field of smooth muscle cells and tissues, and smooth muscles are no longer “headache muscle”. For the sake of convenience for general readers, the book is divided into three parts according to the subjects of articles. Part I includes articles dealing with basic aspects of function of skeletal and smooth muscle cells, and also melanocytes which have many properties common to those of smooth muscles. Part II contains articles dealing with pathological aspects of cardiac and smooth muscle cell functions, while Part III consists of articles concerning factors influencing structure and function of cardiac and smooth muscle cells and tissues. The Editor believes that these articles are extremely stimulating and informative for the readers who are interested not only in the basic mechanisms of muscle cell function, but also in the pathological and clinical aspects of muscle cells and tissues. Dr. Haruo Sugi Emeritus Professor, Teikyo University, Japan [...]... either side of the central part While the S1 heads extend laterally from the filament backbone with an axial interval of 14.3nm (Fig.7B) The central part of myosin filament is called the bare region (or bare zone), where the projection of myosin head is absent Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 10 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans Figure 7 Ultrastructure of. .. records showing the change in position of the same particle, before (red) and after (blue) ATP application (b) Histogram showing distribution of the amplitude of ATP-induced myosin head movement, determined from changes in the center of mass position of each particle (Sugi et al.,2008) Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 18 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans In... numbers 1 and 2) than at the regulatory light chain in myosin lever arm domain (3 and 3’) During the myosin head power stroke taking place in muscle, the myosin head is initially in the pre-power stroke configuration with bound Pi and ADP, and attaches to actin filament Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 24 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans (solid line in E) Then... attempted to record ATP-induced movement of individual Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 12 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans myosin head in using the EC, enabling us to keep myofilaments in hydrated, living state As described later, the EC has been proved to be extremely powerful tool in visualizing the behavior of individual myosin heads under the electron... Since the same stability of myosin heads has also been Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 16 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans observed in the hybrid filaments (Sugi et al.,1997), the stability in time-averaged myosin head mean position seems to be common to myosin heads extending from myosin filament in all kinds of muscle, and is consistent with the contraction... Pathological Approaches to 4 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans changes of biological macromolecules related to their function After many considerations, we decided to study molecular mechanism of muscle contraction using the EC, which was designed and constructed to be suitable for physiological experiments to investigate dynamic structural changes of hydrated muscle myosin... explanation, see text The carbon insulating film prepared by the above method well resisted against pressure difference up to 1 atm (Fukushima, 1981) Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 8 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans 4 Determination of the critical electron dose to impair function of contractile proteins Although biological specimens mounted in the EC can be... Diagram of the film-sealed EC The upper and lower windows (copper grids with nine apertures) are covered with carbon sealing films held on copper grids The EC contains an ATP-containing electrode to apply ATP to the specimen iontophoretically The image of the specimen is recorded with the imaging plate (IP) (Sugi et al , 1997) Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 6 the Function of Muscle Cells and. .. extending from myosin filament and actin monomer (A) in actin filament, based on biochemical studies on actomyosin ATPase reactions For further explanations, see text (Sugi et al.,2008) Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to 20 the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans In order that myosin heads in muscle repeat attachment-detachment cycles with actin filaments, the recovery... estimated to be . CURRENT BASIC AND PATHOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE FUNCTION OF MUSCLE CELLS AND TISSUES – FROM MOLECULES TO HUMANS Edited by Haruo Sugi Current Basic and Pathological Approaches. structural Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans 4 changes of biological macromolecules related to their function. . Current Basic and Pathological Approaches to the Function of Muscle Cells and Tissues – From Molecules to Humans 6 3. Carbon sealing film The most important element of the film-sealed EC is the