Mele Antonietta, Fonzino Adriano, Rana Francesco, Camerino Giulia Maria, De Bellis Michela, Conte Elena, Giustino Arcangela, Conte Camerino Diana, Desaphy Jean-François
Section of Pharmacology, Department of Pharmacy &Drug Sciences, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, 70125 Italy.
Department of Biomedical Sciences &Human Oncology, Polyclinic Biological Research Institute, University of Bari Aldo Moro, P.zza Giulio Cesare 11, Bari, 70124 Italy.
Sci Rep. 2016 Feb 1;6:20061. doi: 10.1038/srep20061.
Muscle atrophy is a widespread ill condition occurring in many diseases, which can reduce quality of life and increase morbidity and mortality. We developed a new method using non-invasive ultrasonography to measure soleus and gastrocnemius lateralis muscle atrophy in the hindlimb-unloaded rat, a well-accepted model of muscle disuse. Soleus and gastrocnemius volumes were calculated using the conventional truncated-cone method and a newly-designed sinusoidal method. For Soleus muscle, the ultrasonographic volume determined in vivo with either method was linearly correlated to the volume determined ex-vivo from excised muscles as muscle weight-to-density ratio. For both soleus and gastrocnemius muscles, a strong linear correlation was obtained between the ultrasonographic volume and the muscle fiber cross-sectional area determined ex-vivo on muscle cryosections. Thus ultrasonography allowed the longitudinal in vivo evaluation of muscle atrophy progression during hindlimb unloading. This study validates ultrasonography as a powerful method for the evaluation of rodent muscle atrophy in vivo, which would prove useful in disease models and therapeutic trials.
肌肉萎缩是一种在多种疾病中普遍存在的病症，它会降低生活质量，并增加发病率和死亡率。我们开发了一种新方法，使用非侵入性超声来测量后肢卸载大鼠的比目鱼肌和腓肠肌外侧肌萎缩，后肢卸载大鼠是一种被广泛认可的肌肉废用模型。比目鱼肌和腓肠肌的体积使用传统的截头圆锥体法和新设计的正弦法进行计算。对于比目鱼肌，用这两种方法在体内测定的超声体积与从切除的肌肉中离体测定的体积呈线性相关，即肌肉重量与密度之比。对于比目鱼肌和腓肠肌，在肌肉冷冻切片上离体测定的超声体积与肌肉纤维横截面积之间均获得了很强的线性相关性。因此，超声检查可以对后肢卸载期间肌肉萎缩的进展进行纵向体内评估。本研究验证了超声检查作为一种在体内评估啮齿动物肌肉萎缩的有力方法，这在疾病模型和治疗试验中将被证明是有用的。
