Morphological aspects of muscle fiber regeneration.

Although striated muscle displays remarkable regenerative potential, the three-dimensional cytoarchitecture of the regenerated myofibers is different from that of myofibers formed during fetal development. It has been demonstrated with spaced, serial ultrathin sections that the regenerating myotubes that occur spontaneously (i.e., without secondary trauma) in dystrophic (dy2J) murine muscle and the regenerating fibers found in free whole-muscle transplants of normal, murine extensor digitorum longus muscles branch and recombine, forming a complex syncytium. Multiple motor end-plate regions are observed on the branched syncytia found in dystrophic muscle. Branched fibers persist in long-term grafts and are found with a frequency that indicates that they should be of physiological significance. Although the number of myofibers found in long-term grafts is approximately 68% of that found in control muscle, comparison of the diameter distributions of the regenerated muscle fibers with age-matched control fibers indicates that many of the regenerating fibers fail to achieve normal size. Type IIb fibers appear to be more growth inhibited than type IIa fibers. The size of the motoneuron pool to grafted muscles is smaller than that to control muscles.