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The differentiation of intrafusal fibre types in rat muscle spindles after motor denervation

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Hind limb muscles were de-efferented in 19 new-born rats by removal of the lumbosacral spinal cord, with preservation of spinal ganglia and their peripheral branches. The juxtaequatorial and polar zones of muscle spindles were studied in different leg muscles 3 to 9 weeks after the operation in order to establish whether intrafusal fibre types would become differentiated after permanent motor denervation.

De-efferented intrafusal fibres developed into distinct ultrastructural fibre types similar to those found in control muscles. The nuclear bag type had confluent myofibrils with ill-defined M lines and relatively few mitochondria. The nuclear chain type had discrete myofibrils with prominent M lines, numerous large mitochondria and a more developed sarcotubular system. The fibre type characteristics were sometimes blurred by disarranged cross striation, but they were clearly discernible in 59 out of 69 de-efferented fibres of 31 spindles investigated in the electron microscope.

A sample of 220 de-efferented spindles from leg muscles of 6 rats was examined in the light microscope on transverse sections stained for ATPase activity. The difference in the ATPase activity among intrafusal fibre types was marked in about 70% spindles; in contrast to this, no distinct fibre types could be discerned in the population of extrafusal fibres which were stained rather uniformly. In de—efferented spindles-as in normal control spindlesnuclear chain fibres always exhibited high ATPase activity, whereas one of the nuclear bag fibres had low ATPase and the other either low or medium to high ATPase activity. However, the ATPase activity of de-efferented muscles was generally lower than that of normal muscles.

It can be concluded that intrafusal fibres do acquire their fibre type characteristics after fusimotor denervation despite complete deprivation of nerve impulse activity during the postnatal period when intrafusal fibre types differentiate in normal spindles.

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  1. Institute of Physiology, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, 1083, Prague 4, Budějovická, Czechoslovakia

    Jiřina Zelená & T. Soukup

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  1. Jiřina Zelená
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The authors wish to thank Mrs. M. Sobotková Ing. M. Doubek and Mr. H. Kunz for their skillful technical assistance.

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Zelená, J., Soukup, T. The differentiation of intrafusal fibre types in rat muscle spindles after motor denervation. Cell Tissue Res. 153, 115–136 (1974). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00225450

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