scholarly journals Modelling depolarization delay, sodium currents, and electrical potentials in cardiac transverse tubules

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah H. Vermij ◽  
Hugues Abriel ◽  
Jan P. Kucera

ABSTRACTT-tubules are invaginations of the lateral membrane of striated muscle cells that provide a large surface for ion channels and signaling proteins, thereby supporting excitation-contraction coupling. T-tubules are often remodeled in heart failure. To better understand the electrical behavior of T-tubules of cardiac cells in health and disease, this study addresses two largely unanswered questions regarding their electrical properties: (1) the delay of T-tubular membrane depolarization and (2) the effects of T-tubular sodium current on T-tubular potentials.Here, we present an elementary computational model to determine the delay in depolarization of deep T-tubular membrane segments as the narrow T-tubular lumen provides resistance against the extracellular current. We compare healthy tubules to tubules with constrictions and diseased tubules from mouse and human, and conclude that constrictions greatly delay T-tubular depolarization, and diseased T-tubules depolarize faster than healthy ones due to tubule widening. We moreover model the effect of T-tubular sodium current on intraluminal T-tubular potentials. We observe that extracellular potentials become negative during the sodium current transient (up to −50 mV in constricted T-tubules), which feedbacks on sodium channel function (self-attenuation) in a manner resembling ephaptic effects that have been described for intercalated discs where opposing membranes are very close together.These results show that (1) the excitation-contraction coupling defects seen in diseased cells cannot be explained by T-tubular remodeling alone; and (2) the sodium current may modulate intraluminal potentials. Such extracellular potentials might also affect excitation-contraction coupling.

1999 ◽  
Vol 277 (2) ◽  
pp. H603-H609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Makoto Kawai ◽  
Munir Hussain ◽  
Clive H. Orchard

Formamide-induced osmotic shock has been used to detubulate isolated adult rat ventricular myocytes (i.e., disrupt the surface membrane-T tubule junction). Cell volume, calculated from cell length and width, rapidly decreased and increased upon application and removal of formamide, respectively. After treatment with formamide, membrane capacitance decreased by 26.4% (from 199.4 ± 18.7 pF in control cells to 146.7 ± 6.4 pF in formamide-treated cells; n = 13, P < 0.05). However, the amplitude of the L-type Ca2+ current ( I Ca) decreased by a greater extent (from 0.75 ± 0.14 to 0.18 ± 0.03 nA; n = 5, P < 0.05) so that the density of I Ca decreased by 74.5%. Simultaneous measurements of I Ca and Ca2+ transients (monitored using fura 2) showed that both decreased rapidly upon removal of formamide. However, the Ca2+ content of the sarcoplasmic reticulum showed little change. Cross-striations, visualized with the fluorescent dye di-8-aminonaphthylethenylpyridinium, were sparse or absent in cells that had been treated with formamide, suggesting that formamide can successfully detubulate cardiac cells and that I Ca is concentrated in the T tubules, which therefore play an important role in excitation-contraction coupling.


2007 ◽  
Vol 130 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjeewa A. Goonasekera ◽  
Nicole A. Beard ◽  
Linda Groom ◽  
Takashi Kimura ◽  
Alla D. Lyfenko ◽  
...  

Ca2+ release from intracellular stores is controlled by complex interactions between multiple proteins. Triadin is a transmembrane glycoprotein of the junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum of striated muscle that interacts with both calsequestrin and the type 1 ryanodine receptor (RyR1) to communicate changes in luminal Ca2+ to the release machinery. However, the potential impact of the triadin association with RyR1 in skeletal muscle excitation–contraction coupling remains elusive. Here we show that triadin binding to RyR1 is critically important for rapid Ca2+ release during excitation–contraction coupling. To assess the functional impact of the triadin-RyR1 interaction, we expressed RyR1 mutants in which one or more of three negatively charged residues (D4878, D4907, and E4908) in the terminal RyR1 intraluminal loop were mutated to alanines in RyR1-null (dyspedic) myotubes. Coimmunoprecipitation revealed that triadin, but not junctin, binding to RyR1 was abolished in the triple (D4878A/D4907A/E4908A) mutant and one of the double (D4907A/E4908A) mutants, partially reduced in the D4878A/D4907A double mutant, but not affected by either individual (D4878A, D4907A, E4908A) mutations or the D4878A/E4908A double mutation. Functional studies revealed that the rate of voltage- and ligand-gated SR Ca2+ release were reduced in proportion to the degree of interruption in triadin binding. Ryanodine binding, single channel recording, and calcium release experiments conducted on WT and triple mutant channels in the absence of triadin demonstrated that the luminal loop mutations do not directly alter RyR1 function. These findings demonstrate that junctin and triadin bind to different sites on RyR1 and that triadin plays an important role in ensuring rapid Ca2+ release during excitation–contraction coupling in skeletal muscle.


1968 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy A. Staley ◽  
Ellis S. Benson

Frog ventricular cardiac muscle has structural features which set it apart from frog and mammalian skeletal muscle and mammalian cardiac muscle. In describing these differences, our attention focused chiefly on the distribution of cellular membranes. Abundant inter cellular clefts, the absence of tranverse tubules, and the paucity of sarcotubules, together with exceedingly small cell diameters (less than 5 µ), support the suggestion that the mechanism of excitation-contraction coupling differs in these muscle cells from that now thought to be characteristic of striated muscle such as skeletal muscle and mammalian cardiac muscle. These structural dissimilarities also imply that the mechanism of relaxation in frog ventricular muscle differs from that considered typical of other striated muscles. Additional ultrastructural features of frog ventricular heart muscle include spherical electron-opaque bodies on thin filaments, inconstantly present, forming a rank across the I band about 150 mµ from the Z line, and membrane-bounded dense granules resembling neurosecretory granules. The functional significance of these features is not yet clear.


1985 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 879-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. H. Leal-Cardoso ◽  
G. Suarez-Kurtz

Single crab (Callinectes danae) fibers were equilibrated with isotonic, high KC1 solutions and were subsequently returned to the control saline. This caused marked swelling of the T tubules. Fibers treated with 100 mM KCl had a 2.5-mV residual depolarization, a 50% decrease in effective membrane resistance (Reff) and a 75% reduction in membrane time constant (τm). These fibers exhibited large increases in membrane conductance upon depolarization and were inexcitable; membrane depolarization with current pulses elicited no contraction. The effects of the KCl treatment on membrane properties were not reproduced by treatment with high potassium gluconate solutions, which did not cause tubular swelling. Tetrabutylammonium (10 mM) or Ba ions (10–20 mM), but not tetraethylammonium (40–100 mM), Sr ions (15–70 mM), or procaine (1–8 mM) reversed the effects of the KCl treatment on Reff, τm, membrane excitability, and excitation–contraction coupling. The time course of the Ba effects was consistent with the suggestion that the KCl treatment increases the K conductance of the tubular membranes, which in turn prevents the activation of voltage-dependent Ca channels located in the membranes of the T system. This results in inhibition of the Ca-dependent electrogenesis and consequently, the absence of contraction upon depolarization of the plasma membrane.


Author(s):  
J.R. Sommer ◽  
E. Bossen ◽  
A. Fabiato

The junctional sarcoplasmic reticulum (JSR, syn. terminal cisterna) is implicated in Ca++storage and release for muscle contraction. Its discrete ultrastructure permits distinction from the rest of the SR (free SR) even when it occurs without plasmalemmal contact, e.g. as extended JSR (EJSR) in bird, and corbular SR (CSR) in mammalian cardiac cells. The close apposition of JSR to plasmalemma via junctional processes is central to proposed mechanisms of translating voltage-dependent charge transfers at the plasmalemma during the action potential into Ca++release from the JSR. These hypotheses are put into question by the existence of EJSR (and CSR) which in birds constitutes 70-80% of the total JSR. An alternate hypothesis proposes, at least for cardiac cells, that Ca++entering the cell during excitation causes additional Ca++to be freed intracellularly. The notion of a chemical transmitter acting by diffusion is attractive because it will allow for the anomalous topography of EJSR, especially since bird cardiac cells have only about half the diameter of their mammalian relatives and have no transverse tubules.


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