5 DIFFERENT TYPES OF CENTRALLY NUCLEATED MUSCLE-FIBERS IN MAN - ELEMENTAL COMPOSITION AND MORPHOLOGICAL CRITERIA - A STUDY OF MYOPATHIES, FETAL TISSUE AND MUSCLE-SPINDLE

  • 1 January 1982
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 14  (2) , 377-387
Abstract
Muscle biopsy material from patients with 2 types of benign hereditary myopathy was explored with electron probe X-ray microanalysis performed on thick cryosections observed in a scanning electron microscope equipped for the analyzes. The elemental spectra obtained were related to the ratio between cross-sectional areas of centrally located nuclei and corresponding muscle fibers. Fetal myotubes and intrafusal muscle fibers were examined by the same methods. One of the myopathies was characterized by fibers resembling myotubes (myotubular myopathy) and exhibited elementary spectra with higher Na and Cl and lower K signals than normally found. These spectra have a tinge of those found in fetal muscle and in extrafusal muscle fibers. The other type of myopathy had less specific morphological characteristics and exhibited different pathological changes in the muscle fibers and central nuclei in a considerable number of fibers. These nuclei were, smaller in relation to the cross-sectional area of the corresponding fibers than in fetal myotubes, fibers in the myotubular myopathy and in the intrafusal muscle fibers. Elemental spectra of muscle fibers in the latter myopathy conformed to the normal state. Central nuclei of muscle fibers is a pathological phenomenon which can mirror an arrest in fiber development as well as a muscle fiber degeneration. An arrest in the development is suspected in myopathic muscle fiber with large central nuclei and an elevated content of NaCl in the sarcoplasm.

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