Possible role of the transverse tubules in accumulating calcium released from the terminal cisternae by stimulation and drugs

Abstract

The sizes of the rapidly exchanging and slowly exchanging Ca2+ pools were estimated in frog sartorius muscles. A new technique using Sr2+ to extract the rapidly exchanging pool was used. The method avoids problems of kinetic analysis. The results showed that stimulation causes Ca2+ to be translocated from a compartment which exchanges with a time constant of 800 min to a compartment that can be washed out in 15 min. This is likely a transfer from the terminal cisternae to the transverse tubule. Calculations show that this would represent 0.9% of the Ca2+ released in each twitch. After 300 twitches produced by a 1-Hz stimulation, this accumulation could have increased the Ca concentration in the transverse tubules to 70 mM. A marked increase of Ca2+ concentration of this magnitude in the transverse tubules would raise the mechanical threshold for excitation–contraction coupling and would decrease the efficiency of coupling between contraction and excitation. This could be the explanation of the fatigue observed during this kind of stimulation.