week 3 Flashcards
What are the 3 types of Cardiac muscle cells
- Contractile Cells (>99%)
- pacemaker cells
- Conduction Fibers
Contractile Cells
- Contain contractile machinery like skeletal muscle including sarcomeres, troponin and tropomyosin
- Connected by gap junctions in 2 syncytia (collection of cells with cytoplasmic continuity - atrial and ventricular)
Pacemaker cells
- Specialized cells that create heart rhythm
- very few myofibrils
- different fiber shape
- doesn’t have contractile fibers
Conduction fibers
- Conduct action potentials around heart in coordinated manner
- connect atrial and ventricular syncytia
- very few myofibrils
- no contractile fibers
Which ions have high concentrations in the extracellular fluid
Na+ and Ca++
Which ions have high concentrations in the intracellular fluid
K+
What is the resting membrane potential of cardiac muscle and how does that vary from other cells such as neurons
Resting membrane potential: -80 to -90
- more negative than neurons
What factors maintain a negative resting membrane potential
- Greater K+ membrane permeability compared to Na+
- the Na+/K+ ATPase (3 Na+ out/ 2K+ in)
What is the main difference between cardiac and neuron/skeletal muscle APs causing long-lasting depolarization in cardiac fibers
Increased Ca++ permeability and reduced K+ permeability
Cardiac Muscle Action Potential
- Threshold depolarization opens voltage-gates Na+ channels in cell membrane
- influx of Na+ - Voltage- gated Na+ channels close (inactivate) and K+ channels in cell membrane close
- Voltage-gated Ca++ channels (L-type) in cell membrane open
- Ca++ influx - Ca++ channels close and K+ channels re-open
- Ca++ influx stops, K+ efflux - Na+/K+ ATPase and Na+/Ca++ exchangers in cell membrance and Ca++ ATPase in sarcoplasmic reticulum help re-establish ion concentrations, resting membrane potential maintained
Excitation-Contraction Coupling in Contractile cells
- AP spreads to interior of cell via T tubules
- Ca++ flows into cytoplasm from extracellular fluid
- Ca++ influx stimulates opening of Ryanodine receptor channels (RyR) in the SR membrane
- More Ca++ flows into the cytoplasm form the SR
- Ca++ then binds to troponin, which causes a conformational change of tropomyosin that exposes myosin binding sites on actin, and cross-bridge cycling starts
Why is there a greater effect on cardiac muscle than skeletal muscle when reducing extracellular Ca++
- Cardiac muscle relies more on extracellular Ca++ (more T tubules)
- Skeletal relies more on SR Ca++ (more developed SR)
Differences in permeability seen in pacemaker cells
- High resting membrane Na+ permeability leads to slow depolarization (Not voltage-gated)
- Voltage-gated Ca++ channels open more slowly, so the rate of depolarization is slower than in contractile cells
Why are many voltage-gated Na+ channels in inactivated states in pacemaker cells
the resting potential is never strongly negative
- many inactivation gates don’t open and many activation gates don’t close
Which cells in the heart have pacemaker properties
sinoatrial node, atrioventricular node, purkinje fibers