...Akira Yamada; Masaki Tamori; Tomoaki Iketani; Kazuhiro Oiwa; Tatsuo Motokawa SUMMARY The dermis of sea cucumbers is a catch connective tissue or mutable collagenous tissue that shows large changes in stiffness. Extensive studies on the dermis revealed that it can adopt three different states having...

...Masaki Tamori; Chigusa Takemae; Tatsuo Motokawa SUMMARY The dermis of the body wall of sea cucumbers is composed mainly of extracellular materials such as collagens, proteoglycans and water; the water content is as high as 80%. Yet it shows rapid changes in stiffness under neural control...

...Masaki Tamori; Akira Yamada; Naoto Nishida; Yumiko Motobayashi; Kazuhiro Oiwa; Tatsuo Motokawa SUMMARY The dermis of sea cucumbers is a catch connective tissue or mutable connective tissue that exhibits large changes in mechanical properties. A stiffening protein, tensilin, has been isolated from...

... compartment, thus promoting muscle relaxation. The microsomal fraction derived from the longitudinal smooth muscle of the body wall from the sea cucumber Ludwigothurea grisea retains a membrane-bound Ca 2+ -ATPase that is able to transport Ca 2+ mediated by ATP hydrolysis. Immunological analyses reveal...

...Maria Byrne ABSTRACT Evisceration in the dendrochirotid sea cucumber Eupentacta quinquesemita is a whole-body response involving a predictable series of events including muscle contraction and failure of three autotomy structures: (i) the introvert, the dexterous anterior extensible portion...

... obtained from sea cucumber ( Ludwigothurea grisea ) smooth muscle. The activity of this enzyme is enhanced three-to fivefold by K + and Na + . During Ca 2+ transport, the ATPase can synthesise ATP from ADP and inorganic phosphate (P i ) using the energy derived from the Ca 2+ gradient formed across...

... permits stress relaxation, which has been demonstrated in the MCTs of sea cucumbers ( Eylers, 1982 ; Motokawa, 1984b ; Eylers and Greenberg, 1988 , 1989 ). The model also has a spring ( s 2 , representing a continuous, primarily elastic network) in parallel, preventing creep to the point of failure...

... tissue stiffness are spatially segregated. Both factors were partially purified under non-denaturing conditions by anion-exchange and gel-filtration chromatography. The partially purified protein preparations retained biological activity. These results suggest that the stiffness of sea cucumber dermis...

...Frederick A. Thurmond; John A. Trotter ABSTRACT The principal component of the body wall of the sea cucumber Cucumaria frondosa is a dermis consisting of collagen fibrils, microfibrils, proteoglycans and other soluble and insoluble components. A major structural constituent of the dermis...

... in the cellular regulation of dermal stiffness. In addition, we have extracted from dermal cells an organic factor that stiffens the extracellular matrix. 09 05 1995 © The Company of Biologists Limited 1995 echinoderm sea cucumber Cucumaria frondosa holothurian mutable connective tissue...

...T. Kobayashi; H. Ushitani; H. Wada; J. Inoue; T. Kawakami; H. Sugi ABSTRACT The effect of mechanical vibration on active tension in an echinoderm somatic smooth muscle was studied using the longitudinal retractor muscle (LRM) of a sea cucumber Stichopus japonicus . VBThe steady contracture tension...

...Yutaka Hayashi; Tatsuo Motokawa ABSTRACT The effects of cations (H + , Na + , K + , Ca 2+ , Mg 2+ ) on the mechanical properties of the catch connective tissue in the dermis of a sea cucumber, Holothuria leucospilota Brandt, were studied. The manipulation of the ionic environment caused rapid...

...Tatsuo Motokawa ABSTRACT Stress-relaxation tests and creep tests were performed on the bodywall dermis of two sea cucumbers, Actinopyga echinites (Jäger) and Holothuria leucospilota Brandt. These viscoelastic connective tissues had mechanical properties which agreed well with those of a four...