ARMY PUBLIC SCHOOL GOPALPUR

CLASS 11 SCIENCE SUBJECT - BIOLOGY

SESSION-2020-2021

Chapter -20 Locomotion and Movement

NOTES
Movement
Movement is defined as any visible change of position, exhibited either by the
whole organism or any part of the body. It is one of the important
characteristics of living organisms.
The movement of living things are autonomic (self-sustained) while, the
movement of non-living objects is induced (due to external forces). Both
animals and plants exhibit wide range of movements. Movement of animals
can be muscular and non-muscular. Plants show cellular and often organ
movement, but not the movement of the organism. The study of movement is
called Kinesiology.
Types of Movement
Three main types of movement are exhibited by the cells of the human body.
These are as follows
1. Amoeboid (Pseudopodial) Movement
Movement with the help of finger-shaped protoplasmic extensions (i.e.,
pseudopodia or false feet) (as seen in Amoeba) is called amoeboid movement,
e.g., Movement of leucocytes and macrophages in blood. Cytoskeletal
elements, like microfilaments are also involved in this type of movement.
2. Ciliary Movement
Movement with the help of cilia is called ciliary movement. Cilia are short,
fine, hair-like structures present all over the body surface in large numbers,
which beat in succession in coordinated manner to help in locomotion, e.g.,
Removal of dust particles and foreign substances through the trachea, passage
of ova through female reproductive tract.
This type of movement occurs in most of our internal tubular organs that are
lined by ciliated epithelium.
The above two movements are called non-muscular movements.
3. Muscular Movement
Movement with the help of muscles is called muscular movement. These are
brought about by the movement of myofilaments packed within the muscle
fibres. The contractile property of muscles is used effectively to bring about a
movement. This type of movement is found in majority of multicellular
animals including humans.
Locomotion
It is the movement of an animal as a whole from one place to another. These
are voluntary movements that results in change of place or location. It
requires a perfect coordinated activity of muscular, skeletal and neural
system. Locomotion takes several forms such as walking, running, flying,
swimming, etc.
Advantages of Locomotion
It helps the animal in search of food, shelter, mate, to escape from
enemies/predators, to locate suitable areas for breeding or to disperse to new
locations. Methods of locomotion in animals vary with their habitats and the
demand of situation.
Locomotion v/s Movement
It is very difficult to separate movement from locomotion because an animal
cannot change its place (locomotion) without movement, e.g., Cilia helps in
movement of food inside cytopharynx and in locomotion in Paramecium.
Tentacles in Hydra are used for capturing prey and in locomotion.
Limbs are used for change of body postures as well as for locomotion in
humans.
This suggests that movements and locomotion are interlinked thus, stating
that all locomotions are movements but all movements are not locomotions.
Muscles
These are made up of highly specialised thin and elongated cells called muscle
fibres. Muscles arises from the embryonic mesoderm. It makes about 40-50%
of a human body weight.
Special Properties
Muscles exhibit various special properties, some of them are given below:-
(i) Contractibility: The cells of muscle can be shorten considerably and return
to the original relaxed state.
(ii) Excitability:lifl It is due to the energy stored in the electrical potential
difference across the plasma membrane.
Other distinguishing properties are extensibility and elasticity.
Note:
* Muscle Tissue is the most abundant tissue in most animals.
* Human body has some 639 separate muscles that bring about movement in
majority of animals.
* The study of muscle is called Myology.
• Muscles of iris and ciliary body are ectodermal in origin.
• The largest/biggest muscle in human body is gluteus maximus (hip muscle),
the longest muscle is sartorius (back muscle), the strongest muscle is
masseter (jaw muscles).
• The longest smooth muscle is rectus abdomins and the shortest muscle is
stapedial muscle.
Types of Muscles
Muscles have been classified using different criteria,
i. e., location, appearance and nature of regulation of their activities.
Based on their location, the muscles are of three types, i.e., skeletal, visceral
and cardiac.
i. Skeletal or Striated Muscles
It functions in association with the skeleton of organism. Under the
microscope, they have a striped appearance and hence are called striated
muscles.
They are also known as voluntary muscles as their activities are under the
voluntary control of the nervous system. The major component of muscles is
water and potassium is the most abundant mineral element.
They are primarily involved in locomotory actions and change of body
postures.
ii. Visceral or Smooth Muscles
They are found in the inner walls of hollow visceral (internal) organs of body
like alimentary canal, reproductive tract, etc.
They do not exhibit any striation, i.e., smooth in appearance and hence, are
called smooth muscles (non-striated muscle). They are also known as
involuntary muscles as they are not under the voluntary or direct control of
the nervous system.
They assist in the transportation of materials, e.g., Movement of food through
the digestive tract and gametes through the genital tract.
iii. Cardiac Muscles
It occurs in the wall of the heart and in walls of large veins (e.g., Pulmonary
veins and superior vena cava), where these veins enter the heart. These are
striated and involuntary in nature. Oblique bands and intercalated discs are
their characteristic feature.
It assembles in a branching pattern to form a cardiac muscle. They never get
fatigued.
Note:
* Two types of muscles fibres are found in the body. Slowtwitch (in muscles
that require endurance) and fast twitch (in muscles that contract quickly.)
* High intensity exercise causes an increase in muscle mass, while low
intensity exercise, aerobic exercise, build mass, but do not burn colonies.
Detailed Structure of a Skeletal Muscle
Skeletal muscle is made up of a numbed of muscle bundles or fascicles held
together by fascia (collagenous connective tissue layer).
(plasma membrane) and contains well developed endoplasmic reticulum
(sarcoplasmic reticulum), specialised for calcium storage in its sarcoplasm
(cytoplasm).
Muscle fibre is a syncitium as the sarcoplasm contains many nuclei. There are
large number of parallely arranged filaments called myofilaments or
myofibrils (characteristic feature of muscle fibre).
Detailed Study of a Myofibril
A myofibril has alternate dark and light bands. The dark bands are also called
A-band (anisotropic band) and contains protein myosin. The light bands are
also called I-band (isotropic band) and contains actin.
The striated appearance of myofibril is due to the distribution pattern of the
proteins actin and myosin. Both these proteins are arranged as rod-like
structures, parallel to each other and also to longitudinal axis of myofibrils.
Actin filaments are thinner than myosin filaments, hence are usually called
thin and thick filaments respectively.
Composition of Muscle Bundle
Each muscle bundle contains a number of muscle fibres (muscle cells),
bounded by sarcolemma
Each I-band has its centre, a dark membrane called Z-line (an elastic fibre). It
is also called Z-disc or Krause’s membrane or Dobie’s line. The part of the
myofibril between two successive Z-lines is a called a sarcomere (functional
unit of contraction). A sarcomere consists of the A-band and half of each
adjacent I-band. A thin fibrous membrane called M-line present in the middle
of A-band holds the thick filaments together.
The A and I-bands are arranged alternately throughout the length of myofibril.
At the centre of A-band, a portion is present that is not overlapped by thin
filaments. It is called the H-zone (Hensen zone).
In resting state, the edges of thin filaments on either side of thick filaments
partially overlap each other leaving H-zone in the centre of thick filaments.
Structure ot Contractile Proteins
The thick myofilaments are formed by myosin protein. The thin myofilaments
are formed by three types of proteins called actin, tropomyosin and troponin.
These four proteins are collectively known as contractile proteins.
Thick Myofilament or Primary Myofilament
It consists mainly of myosin protein. Each myosin filament is a polymerised
protein, made up of many monomeric proteins called meromyosins.
Each meromyosin has two important parts as follows
Globular Head
It has a short arm, called heavy meromyosin (HMM). The HMM components
projects outwards at regular distance and angle from each other, from surface
of a polymerised myosin filament and known as cross arm. The globular head
is an active ATPase enzyme, which has binding sites for ATP and active sites
for actin.
Tail
Tail is called the light meromyosin (LMM). The myosin molecule has two
identical heavy chains and four light chains. The two heavy chain is wrap
spirally around each other to form a double helix. The light chains are the
parts of the myosin heads and help control the function of head during the
contraction of muscle.

Thin Myofilament or Secondary Myofilament

It is composed of following proteins Actin
It is a globular protein with low molecular weight. It is made up of two ‘F’
(filamentous) actin helically wound to each other. Each F actin is a polymer of
monomeric ‘G’ (globular) actins.
Tropomyosin
Two filaments of. this protein run close to the ‘F’ actions throughout its length.
iii. Troponin
It is a complex protein of three globular peptides (Troponin T, Troponin-I and
Troponin-C) distributed at regular intervals on tropomyosin.

In the resting stage of muscle fibre, a subunit of troponin masks the active
sites for myosin on the actin filaments.
Note:
* Partial overlapping of primary myofilaments by the secondary myofilaments
imparts dark appearance to the A-bands.
* The strong affinity of the troponin for calcium ions is believed to initiate the
contraction process.
Mechanism of Muscle Contraction
The contraction of muscle is best explained by the sliding filament theory. It
states that contraction of muscles takes place by the sliding of thin and thick
filaments that past over each other with the help of cross-bridge to reduce the
length of the sarcomere.
This theory was proposed independendy by AF Huxley and R Niedergerke and
by HE Huxley and Jean Manson in England in 1954.
The sequence of events leading to contraction is initiated by a signal in the
Central Nervous System (CNS), either from the brain (voluntary activity) or
from spinal cord (reflex activity) via a motor neuron.
A motor neuron along with the muscle fibres connected to it, forms a motor
unit and the action potential is conveyed to a motor end plate (or
neuromuscular junction) i.e., the junction between a motor neuron and
sarcolemma of muscle fibre) on each muscle fibre.
A neurotransmitter (acetylcholine) is released at the junction by the neural
signal which generates an action potential in the sarcolemma. This spreads
and causes the release of calcium ions into sarcoplasm.
Calcium plays a key regulatory role in muscle contraction. Increase in calcium
ions level leads to their binding to troponin subunit. Thus, exposing the active
sites on F-actin molecules.
Formation of Cross-Bridge
An ATP molecule joins the active site on myosin head of myosin myofilament.
These heads contains an enzyme, myosin ATPase that along with Ca2+ and
Mg2+ ions catalyses the breakdown of ATP.
The energy is transferred to myosin head, which energises and straightens to
join an active site on actin myofilament, forming a cross bridge.

The energised cross-bridges move, causing the attached actin filaments to

move towards the centre of A-band. The Z-line is also pulled inwards causing
shortening of sarcomere, i.e„ contraction. It is clear from the above
explanation that during contraction A-bands retain the length, while I-bands
get reduced.
The myosin head releases ADP and Pi, relaxes to its low energy state. The
head detaches from actin myofilaments when new ATP joins it (cross-bridge
broken).
In repeating cycle, the free head cleaves the new ATP. The cycles of cross
bridge formation and breakage is repeated causing further sliding.
Muscle Relaxation
After contraction the calcium ions are pumped back to the , sarcoplasmic
cisternae, blocking the active sites on actin myofilaments. The Z-line returns
to original position, i.e., relaxation.
Note:
Rigor Mortis is the state of body stiffening after death due to non-separation
of actin and myosin filaments caused by non-availibility of ATP. It appears
first in the small muscles of the face (such as jaw) and those being used most
actively prior to death. It persists till decomposition starts.
Red and White
Birds and mammals have two kinds of striated muscle fibres, in their skeletal
muscles, i.e., red (or slow) and white (or fast) muscle fibres.
Differences between Red and White Muscle Fibres

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