[Morphological and physiological characterization of fiber types in the iliofibular muscle of Rana esculenta]

Abstract

In both longitudinal and cross sections of the M. iliofibularis of Rana esculenta three types of muscle fibres are identified by means of light and electron microscopy. These fibretypes called A-, B- and C-fibres are according to the fibres of m. rectus abdominis of the frog. They can be compared with the fibres of the m. rectus abdominis of rat and mouse. But there is another distribution of the fibretypes A, B and C in the m. iliofibularis and in the m. rectus abdominis. The m. iliofibularis is divided into two parts called "Tonusbündel" and "nichttonischer Teil" by means of their reaction to acetylcholine. The surface of the "Tonusbündel" consists of A-, B- and C-fibres while its inside is onlyformed by A- and B-fibres. They continue the "Tonusbündel" in the "nichttonischer Teil". This part chiefly consists of A-fibres. In cross sections their myofibrils are larger in their extent than the A-fibres known before. Therefore the A-fibretype has to be distinguished into two A-fibres: A1 and A2. The new one is called A2-fibre. A1-fibre is described in the "Tonusbündel" and in further investigations. The difference between the two fibres can be understood as a greater manifestation of power of the A1-fibre. The surface of the "nichttonischer Teil" of the m. iliofibularis consists of A2-fibres which easily could be found opposite the "Tonusbündel". At this point in contrary to the "Tonusbündel" could be found a defined morphological substrate for physiological investigations. The different reactions of "Tonusbündel" and "nichttonischer Teil" to acetylcholine could only be explained by the sum of reactions of all fibretypes in each bundle in correspondence with the reaction of the fibres in the neighbour bundle. But their different behaviour by summer- and winterfrogs is unknown. Therefore it is to discuss whether it is allowed to refer generally the results to "muscle" or "musclefibre" got from frogs living in cooled rooms. It is known in literature that not all results of physiological investigations can be interpreted with the two fibre- theorie ("twitch" and "slow") of muscle. Those not interpretable physiological results could be associated to the B-fibre can not be explained by morphological methods but must be proofed by physiological investigations. In tables are summerised morphological criteria of the three types and it is tried to associate the physiological qualities known from literature. Besides there is summerised the usual nomenclature with the first citations.