Abstract
MANY aspects of vertebrate smooth muscle function cannot be studied adequately in the whole animal or in vitro because the collagen net surrounding individual cells distorts force-time relationships1. Electron microscopy of smooth muscle tissues has provided some data on structural changes during contraction2,3, but the difficulty in obtaining sections in the correct plane and lack of a suitable method for viewing contractile elements in three dimensions has impeded progress. Lowy and Small4, using a weight to stretch guinea-pig taenia coli during fixation and dehydration, observed a ribbon-like arrangement of myosin filaments but could not study contracted cells prepared the same way.
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References
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BAGBY, R., YOUNG, A., DOTSON, R. et al. Contraction of Single Smooth Muscle Cells from Bufo marinus Stomach. Nature 234, 351–352 (1971). https://doi.org/10.1038/234351a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/234351a0
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