Question

Define hypertrophy and use an example to explain how this term relates to skeletal muscle tissue. (3 marks)

Answer 1

Ans) Hypertrophy is an increase in the size of cells (or tissues) in response to various stimuli.

- A typical example is muscular hypertrophy in response to exercise.

- Exercise stimulates skeletal and cardiac muscle fibers to increase in diameter and to accumulate more structural contractile proteins.

- Muscle hypertrophy involves an increase in size of skeletal muscle through a growth in size of its component cells.

- Two factors contribute to hypertrophy: sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, which focuses more on increased muscle glycogen storage; and myofibrillar hypertrophy, which focuses more on increased myofibril size.