Muscle fibre types and size distribution in sub‐antarctic notothenioid fishes

Abstract

The presumptive tonic muscles fibres of Cottoperca gobio, Champsocephalus esox, Harpagifer bispinis, Eleginops maclovinus, Patagontothen tessellata, P. cornucola and Paranotothenia magellanica stained weakly or were unstained for glycogen, lipid, succinic dehydrogenase (SDHase) and myosin ATPase (mATPase) activity. Slow, intermediate and fast twitch muscle fibres, distinguished on the basis of the pH stability of their mATPases, showed intense, moderate and low staining activity for SDHase, respectively. Slow fibres were the major component of the pectoral fin adductor profundis muscle. The proportion of different muscle fibre types varied from the proximal to distal end of the muscle, but showed relatively little variation between species. The myotomes contained a lateral superficial strip of red muscle composed of presumptive tonic, slow twitch and intermediate fibres, thickening to a major wedge at the horizontal septum. All species also had characteristic secondary dorsal and ventral wedges of red muscle. The relative abundance and localization of muscle fibre types in the red muscle varied between species and with body size in the protandric hermaphrodite E. maclovinus. The frequency distribution of diameters for fast twitch muscle fibres, the major component of deep white muscle, was determined in fish of a range of body sizes. The absence of fibres <20 m diameter was used as a criterion for the cessation of muscle fibre recruitment. Fibre recruitment had stopped in P. tessellata of 13·8 cm L T and E. maclovinus of 32·8 cm L T , equivalent to 49 and 36·5% of their recorded maximum sizes respectively. As a result in 20-cm P. tessellata, the maximum fibre diameter was 300 m and 36% of fibres were in excess of 200 m. The unusually large maximum fibre diameter, the general arrangement of the red muscle layer and the extreme pH lability of the mATPase of fast twitch fibres are all common characters of the sub-Antarctic and Antarctic Notothenioids, including Cottoperca gobio, the suggested sister group to the Notothenidae. 2000 The Fisheries Society of the British Isles

Morphological and histochemical characterization of the pectoral fin muscle of the stripped weakfish, Cynoscion guatucupa

“…They have also been found in Antarctic fishes that swim by pectoral fins movements (Walesby and Johnston ; Davison and MacDonald ; Johnston ; Fernández et al . , ). Many are the histochemical, immunohistochemical and ultrastructural studies reporting small red fibres (sr) with features characteristic of tonic fibres in both the myotomal musculature and fins (Karasinsky and Kilarski ; Calvo and Johnston ; Chayen et al .…”

“…In labriform swimming notothenioids, the pink fibres are arranged in a mosaic among the red fibres, having an intermediate SDH and glycogen activity, and not differing from the myotomal pink fibres in relation to its mATPase activity (Fernández et al . , ).…”

Fish muscle: the exceptional case of notothenioids

“…The axial muscle of the notothenioids is unusual in containing very large diameter muscle fibers in comparison to other teleosts (Smialowska and Kilarski 1981;Dunn et al 1989;Battram and Johnston 1991;Fernández et al 2000;Johnston et al 2003b). The maximum fiber diameters increase linearly with standard length, reaching more than 500 lm in many of the species studied ).…”

“…Four different fiber types have been described for the axial muscles of nototheniods: slow, tonic, intermediate, and fast, using histochemical techniques for myosin ATPase, succinic dehydrogenase (SDHase), glycogen, and lipids (Walesby and Johnston 1980;Smialowska and Kilarski 1981;Dunn et al 1989;Fernández 2000;Fernández et al 2000). The different fiber types are relatively segregated in the myotome of notothenioids, with a superficial layer (the width varies in the different species) composed of tonic, slow, and intermediate fibers surrounding a core of fast fibers (see details in Fig.…”

Phenotypic plasticity of muscle fiber type in the pectoral fins of Polypterus senegalus reared in a terrestrial environment

“…They can be used as wings or oars for thrust, as foils and rudders for steering, and even as appendages for 'walking' on land. However, the study of fiber-type diversity and distribution in pectoral musculature has been limited to a relatively small pool of narrowly distributed marine fishes (Chayen et al, 1993;Davison, 1994;Davison and Macdonald, 1985;Devincenti et al, 2009Devincenti et al, , 2015Fernandez et al, 2000;Hernández et al, 2016;Kundu and Mansuri, 1991;Kundu et al, 1990;Kryvi and Totland, 1978;Walesby and Johnston, 1980). Fiber type in the context of development has also been studied in zebrafish (Patterson et al, 2008;Thorsen and Hale, 2005).…”