Abstract
Contractile properties and actin filament morphology were measured in smooth muscle cells freshly isolated from rat thoracic aortas. The major length of the cells before and after contraction induced with 10^<-5>M serotonin was 49.0 ± 5.6 μm (n=7, mean ± SEM) and 39.2 ± 5.4 μm, respectively, and the cell shortening was 20.1 ± 3.9 %. The cell shortening increased with their initial cell length, peaked at 〜50 μm, and then decreased. The actin filaments in the untreated cells were mostly straight fibers running along the major axis of the cells, while those in the contracted cells. had aggregated structure without preferential direction. The volume and the average fluorescent intensity of the actin filaments estimated from their confocal images were not significantly different between the untreated and the contracted cells. These results may indicate that the cell contraction is accompanied not only by the sliding of actin and myosin filaments but also by the entanglement of the actin filaments, maintaining the amount of actin filaments.
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