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Filamentous structures in skeletal muscle: anchors for the subsarcolemmal space

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Abstract

In skeletal muscle fibers, intermediate filaments and actin filaments provide structural support to the myofibrils and the sarcolemma. For many years, it was poorly understood from ultrastructural observations that how these filamentous structures were kept anchored. The present study was conducted to determine the architecture of filamentous anchoring structures in the subsarcolemmal space and the intermyofibrils. The diaphragms (Dp) of adult wild type and mdx mice (mdx is a model for Duchenne muscular dystrophy) were subjected to tension applied perpendicular to the long axis of the muscle fibers, with or without treatment with 1 % Triton X-100 or 0.03 % saponin. These experiments were conducted to confirm the presence and integrity of the filamentous anchoring structures. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that these structures provide firm transverse connections between the sarcolemma and peripheral myofibrils. Most of the filamentous structures appeared to be inserted into subsarcolemmal densities, forming anchoring connections between the sarcolemma and peripheral myofibrils. In some cases, actin filaments were found to run longitudinally in the subsarcolemmal space to connect to the sarcolemma or in some cases to connect to the intermyofibrils as elongated thin filaments. These filamentous anchoring structures were less common in the mdx Dp. Our data suggest that the transverse and longitudinal filamentous structures form an anchoring system in the subsarcolemmal space and the intermyofibrils.

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Acknowledgments

We thank H. Matsuda, M. Shikada and Y. Morimura for both technical and secretarial assistance. This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, KAKENHI Grant Numbers 20590183, 23590230.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomy, Gunma University Graduate School of Medicine, 3-39-22 Showa-machi, Maebashi, Gunma, 371-8511, Japan

    Astrid Feinisa Khairani, Yuki Tajika, Maiko Takahashi, Hitoshi Ueno, Tohru Murakami & Hiroshi Yorifuji

  2. Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Padjadjaran, Bandung, West Java, Indonesia

    Astrid Feinisa Khairani & Arifin Soenggono

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  1. Astrid Feinisa Khairani
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Correspondence to Hiroshi Yorifuji.

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Khairani, A.F., Tajika, Y., Takahashi, M. et al. Filamentous structures in skeletal muscle: anchors for the subsarcolemmal space. Med Mol Morphol 48, 1–12 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00795-014-0070-3

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