A freeze-fracture study of extensor digitorum longus and soleus muscle fibers from thyrotoxic rats.

Freeze-fracture methods were used to study the sarcoplasmic reticulum and surface membranes in muscles from rats after chronic administration of triiodothyronine (150 micrograms/kg daily, for 1 to 20 days). The major effect of the hormone on the sarcoplasmic reticulum was to increase the numbers of indentations in the terminal cisternae in parallel with an increase in the speed of the isometric twitch. The indentations increased from 7.3 +/- 0.2 to 10.6 +/- 0.1 (mean +/- 1 SEM)/micron of terminal cisternae in the fast-twitch extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and from 0.9 +/- 0.1 to 4.4 +/- 0.1/micron in slow-twitch soleus fibers. The increase in indentation density in both types of muscle occurred within 10 days of the commencement of hormone injection. During the same period there was a small reduction in the density of intramembrane particles in the plasmalemma and a significant increase in the number of caveolae, from 14.6 +/- 0.25 to 20.4 +/- 0.3/micron2 in EDL fibers, and from 22.9 +/- 0.3 to 28.6 +/- 0.3/micron2 in soleus. The increase in caveolae density was coincident with an increase in the area of T-tubule membrane. The results provide further evidence that the indentations in the terminal cisternae play a functional role in muscle activation and that the caveolae are the surface openings of transverse tubules.