Influence of Colchicine on the Form of Skeletal Muscle in Tissue Culture.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Mammalian striated muscle in tissue culture regenerates with the outgrowth of long slender sarcoblastic fibers. When such cultures were treated with colchincine in concns. of 10 [image] or greater, the sarcoblasts invariably became segmented, after a series of disruptive changes, into very short, widened, blunt pieces of reduced consistency and refractility. The effect was generally elicited within 5 to 9 hrs. after exposure to colchicine, and Us magnitude was proportionate to dosage (concn. x time). The response of more differentiated elements was slower and less marked. Recovery, with regeneration usually occurred after removal of colchicine, indicating the viability of the segments. These changes were not seen in control cultures, or after exposure of cultures to comparable dosages of 9 other agents known as mitotlc poisons or substances affecting muscle contraction. Assuming that the continuity of the sarcoblast fiber is due to a parallel oriented arrangement of long-chain protein micelles (myosin) it was postulated that colchicine interferes with the maintenance of this micellar pattern by acting to dissociate such micellar aggregates. This behavior is compared with the analagous action of colchicine on the cell cytoplasm and the mitotic spindle, the skeletal framework of which is also thought to be constructed by fibrillar protein chains.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: