Local activation of frog muscle fibres with linearly rising currents.

1. Single fast muscle fibres isolated from the semitendinosus muscles of the frog were locally activated by applying linearly rising current pulses to a pipette whose tip (diameter, 10-40 mu) was in contact with the fibre surface.2. In normal or choline-Ringer solution with 1.8 mM-Ca, the threshold depolarization for producing a just perceptible local contraction was nearly constant over a wide range of the duration of linearly rising currents (0.5-20 sec or more).3. If [Ca](o) was reduced to 0.25-0.1 mM, the threshold depolarization increased steeply with the increase in the duration of linearly rising currents, indicating a marked increase in the rate of an accommodation process in excitation-contraction coupling mechanism.4. In the low-Ca media, the threshold depolarization was observed to rise exponentially during the application of a linearly rising current of 3-10 sec duration, and to return exponentially to its initial value within 3-10 sec after the removal of the current.5. The marked accommodation in the low-Ca media was partially inhibited by the addition of Mg (5-10 mM), and completely eliminated in the presence of caffeine (1 mM), suggesting that the accommodation process may occur in the link between membrane depolarization and release of Ca from sarcoplasmic reticulum.6. Microscopic observation of local contractions in the low-Ca media indicated that the accommodative rise of threshold depolarization was most marked at the superficial layer of the fibre.7. From these results, it is suggested that the removal of bound Ca or some other kind of charged particle from the transverse tubular system or from its vicinity might be the cause of accommodation in excitation-contraction coupling.