A microstructural constitutive model successfully predicts smooth muscle optimal length characteristics, suggesting dense body compliance does not significantly affect total contractile apparatus compliance.
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May refine smooth muscle models for vascular research; leaves open dense body contributions under physiological loads.
Smooth muscle exhibits an optimal length at which it is able to generate a maximum amount of force. In this study, the optimal length is assessed by use of a microstructurally and statistically based constitutive model for smooth muscle. The model is based on the sliding filament theory, and a modified version of Hill's mechanical model was adopted. It was conjectured, that a variation in the overlap in the actomyosin contractile units together with a statistical dispersion in the size of the dense bodies are responsible for the optimal length characteristics. The influence of contractile unit length, dense body size and dense body compliance was investigated, and the model was fully able to predict experimental data. The results indicate that the compliance of the dense bodies does not contribute significantly to the total compliance of the contractile apparatus.
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Martin Kroon (2010) studied this question.
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