myofibril

myofibril
/muy'euh fuy"breuhl, -fib"reuhl/, n. Cell Biol.
a contractile fibril of skeletal muscle, composed mainly of actin and myosin.
[1895-1900; MYO- + FIBRIL]

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      very fine contractile fibres, groups of which extend in parallel columns along the length of striated muscle fibres. The myofibrils are made up of thick and thin myofilaments, which help give the muscle its striped appearance. The thick filaments are composed of myosin, and the thin filaments are predominantly actin, along with two other muscle proteins, tropomyosin and troponin. Muscular contraction is caused by the interaction between actin and myosin as they temporarily bind to each other and are released.

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Myofibril — 1. Axon 2. Neuromuscular junction 3. Muscle fiber 4. Myofibril Latin myofibrilla MeSH …   Wikipedia

  • myofibril — [mī΄ə fī′brəl] n. any of a number of tiny, contractile fibrils composed of actomyosin and bundled together within a muscle cell …   English World dictionary

  • myofibril — noun Etymology: New Latin myofibrilla, from my + fibrilla fibril Date: 1898 any of the longitudinal parallel contractile elements of a muscle cell that are composed of myosin and actin • myofibrillar adjective …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • myofibril — Long cylindrical organelle of striated muscle, composed of regular arrays of thick and thin filaments, and constituting the contractile apparatus …   Dictionary of molecular biology

  • myofibril — noun Cylindrical organelles, found within muscle cells, that are the contractile unit of muscles. Syn: sarcostyle …   Wiktionary

  • myofibril — One of the fine longitudinal fibrils occurring in a skeletal or cardiac muscle fiber comprising many regularly overlapped ultramicroscopic thick and thin myofilaments. SYN: muscular fibril, myofibrilla. [myo + Mod. L. fibrilla, fibril] …   Medical dictionary

  • myofibril — [ˌmʌɪə(ʊ) fʌɪbrɪl] noun any of the elongated contractile threads found in striated muscle cells …   English new terms dictionary

  • myofibril — myo·fibril …   English syllables

  • myofibril — n. one of numerous contractile filaments found within the cytoplasm of striated muscle cells. When viewed under a microscope myofibrils show alternating bands of high and low refractive index, which give striated muscle its characteristic… …   The new mediacal dictionary

  • myofibril — my•o•fi•bril [[t]ˌmaɪ əˈfaɪ brəl, ˈfɪb rəl[/t]] n. hic (lab cbl) a contractile fibril of skeletal muscle, composed mainly of actin and myosin • Etymology: 1895–1900 …   From formal English to slang

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