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Fig. 1. Structure of vertebrate skeletal muscle (striated muscle)
a: a whole muscle. It consists of many muscle cells (muscle fibers).
b: a muscle fiber. Diameter, 50-100 µm. It consists of many myofibrils (diameter, 1-2 µm). In insect flight muscle, both muscle fibers and myofibrils are thicker than these.
c: A magnified view of a myofibril, made of 2-2.5 µm-long sarcomeres connected in series. In a sarcomere, the myofilaments, made of the contractile proteins actin and myosin, are arranged in a hexagonal lattice (d). A single sarcomere contains a single filament lattice equivalent to a single crystal. The numbers in (d) such as 1,0 and 1,1 represent indices for specific lattice planes.
(the same as in topic June 9 2005)