The Journal of General Physiology
Scientifica: Experts in Electrophysiology
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The Journal of General Physiology, Vol 93, 173-192, Copyright © 1989 by The Rockefeller University Press

ARTICLES

Excitation of skinned muscle fibers by imposed ion gradients. IV. Effects of stretch and perchlorate ion

EW Stephenson
Department of Physiology, University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey Medical School, Newark 07103.

Depolarizing ion gradients stimulate 45Ca release in skeletal muscle fibers skinned by microdissection. Several lines of indirect evidence suggest that sealed transverse (T) tubules rather than sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) are the locus of such stimulatory depolarization. Two implications of this hypothesis were tested. (a) A requirement for signal transmission was evaluated from the stimulation of 45Ca efflux in fibers that had been highly stretched, an intervention that can impair the electrical stimulation of intact fibers. Length was increased over approximately 95-115 s, after loading with 45Ca and rinsing at normal length; prestimulus 45Ca loss due to stretch itself was very small. In the first study, stimulation of 45Ca release by KCl replacement of K propionate was inhibited completely in fibers stretched to twice slack length, compared with fibers at 1.05-1.1 times slack length. Identical protocols did not alter 45Ca release stimulated by caffeine or Mg2+ reduction, implying that SR Ca release per se was fully functional and inhibition was selective for a preceding step in ionic stimulation. In a second study, stimulation by choline Cl replacement of K methanesulfonate, at constant [K+] [Cl-] product, was inhibited strongly; total 45Ca release decreased 69%, and stimulation above control loss decreased 78%, in segments stretched to twice the length at which sarcomere spacing had been 2.2 micron, compared with paired controls from the same fibers kept at 2.3 micron. (b) Perchlorate potentiation of T tubule activation was evaluated in fibers stimulated at constant [K+] [Cl-] at normal length (2.3 micron); this anion shifts the voltage dependence of intramembrane charge movement and contractile activation in intact fibers. Perchlorate (8 mM) potentiated both submaximal stimulation of Ca2+-dependent 45Ca release by partial choline Cl replacement of K methanesulfonate and the small Ca2+-insensitive 45Ca efflux component stimulated by nearly full replacement in the presence of 5 mM EGTA. These results provide independent support for the hypothesis that the T tubules are the locus of stimulation by depolarizing ion gradients, with junctional transmission of this signal causing SR 45Ca release.
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