While their functions are diverse, myosins are similar in structure. NMII is so much like cardiac myosin, which keeps the ...

When stimulated by the autonomic nervous system to contract from the release of hormones or other chemical signals, smooth muscle cells shorten via the movement of actin and myosin myofilaments.

Although a variety of research works have been undertaken in terms of modifications of α-smooth muscle actin and mutations of ACTA2 gene and myosin, the underlying mechanisms towards the pathological ...

Myosin II circumvents this issue by forming the filamentous structure with multiple heads. If a myosin II filament has a sufficient number of heads, there are always a few myosin heads bound to ...

The human body contains three kinds of muscle tissue: skeletal, smooth, and cardiac. Only cardiac muscle tissue, comprising cells called myocytes, is present in the heart.

Smooth muscle myosin II (SMII), the main motor protein in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC), generates the contractile forces crucial to VSMC function. SMII filaments assemble into bundles that bind ...

Myosin light chain (MLC) phosphorylation is the essential determinant of smooth muscle contraction because it increases cross-bridge cycling. MLC phosphorylation state is the result of a ...

Does protein build muscle? The answer to this question is a resounding, ‘yes’. Muscle tissue is composed of a repeating structure of two protein filaments: myosin and actin. Myosin and actin ...

Contractile VSMCs possess a greater abundance of α-smooth muscle actin (αSMA) and smooth muscle-myosin heavy chain (SM-MyHC), that enhance their ability to generate actomyosin forces and contract ...

Muscles contract by sliding between thick filaments of myosin and thin filaments of actin. But there has been a longstanding controversy about the dynamics of this molecular machine.

When myosin pulls actin filaments together, the sarcomere length is reduced. In non-muscle and smooth muscle cells, actomyosin is not organized into sarcomeres.