Identification of muscle fibre types in the experimentally denervated tibialis anterior muscle of the rabbit.

Most normal skeletal muscles consist of a mixture of type I and type II muscle fibres which can be identified readily using enzyme histochemical techniques. After experimental denervation each muscle fibre type seems to react differently but their staining properties are altered significantly. A numerical technique was used to identify one of the muscle fibre types independently of its staining properties. It was shown that demonstrating both types of myosin-ATPase activity (E.C. 3.6.1.3) is a valid technique for indentifying whether denervated muscle fibres are type I or type II.