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This article discusses a study conducted on frogs that compare the effect of calcium on muscle. Within the experiment they focused on 6 muscles of the frogs the tibialis anticus longus, peroneus, ileofibularis, sartorius, and the semitendinosus.The experiment itself was pretty complicated, they had each muscle dissected and soaked in 100 ml of solution. The solution consisted of CaCls, NaC1, and KC1.The muscles were soaked for 5 hours and then tested to see the influx of calcium within a given muscle.
The reason for this experiment was to determine the permeability (ability to let things in or out of the cell)
of the muscle cell membrane to calcium.Also the experiments goal to calculate the energy requirements
to maintain the calcium in a steady state. This is vital to muscle metabolism because active working muscle needs calcium. This test will hopefully give us a ball park figure of are calcium influx within a given muscle.
Within this experiment they focused a huge part of the study on the metabolism satorius muscle of frogs. The flux of calcium within the cell during steady state was 0.8 mM/(liter hr) This information help to conclude the idea that their is a calcium pump within the muscle. The calcium pump is responsible for pushing calcium out of cell. The calcium that is being pump out of the cell must be coming out with quite some force, because going against a an chemical gradient.The flux is low but the maximum energy required per hour to pump calcium out of the cell against this high gradient is key in muscle metabolism.
Overall, I think this article does a great job on highlighting the need for calcium in muscle metabolism. I think its interesting to learn that their is in fact a mechanism within a given muscle that is responsible for the maintenance of calcium levels. Also i think it would be interesting to fin out how this mechanism to maintain calcium levels works in human muscle.
While I too find the mechanism for calcium's role in muscle metabolism to be quite interesting, I was trying to find out why do active working muscles need calcium? what type of effect would a lack of/deficiency of calcium have on muscle metabolism?
ReplyDeleteWell, through my research i found that without calcium the muscle can stop being able to contract. This is because the ca++ release that is contained by voltage gated channels is what is responsible for the contraction. The calcium that is released is what make the actin cross of the myosin, causing a contraction. Without calcium the muscle would not be able to contract. Like when some gets botox they stop the calcium from entering into the end plate. Or even when some dies and rigor mortis set in. Hope that helps answer your question :)
ReplyDeleteWe always hear about how important calcium is for our bones. It is also very important for our muscles since calcium is what is used to contract them. I feel like this isn't touched on very much. But maybe since bone health is so important they talk about the relationship between bones and calcium more often. Thank you for sharing this article! It is very interesting.
ReplyDelete^^^^ agreed. people tend to forget that it's only with the release of calcium do we actually get muscle contraction! where would we be without it?! the idea of what pumps calcium into/out of the cell is a nifty research subject though. i remember learning in anatomy that rigor mortis (ie, death stiffness) is because the calcium that is present in the muscle at death gets released but not resequestered (spelling?) into the cell, resulting in a constant muscle contraction, or a spooky zombie like appearance.
ReplyDeleteYeah nice, so true. Calcium is essential in muscle metabolism as it is responsible for muscle contraction. I also remember learning about rigor mortis. I think that since about 99% of the bones calcium is stored in the bones people do in fact forget about how vital it is in our muscle. Thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteis that true decrease of calcium can effects bones strength
ReplyDeletegeneric cialis