Normal and dystrophic chicken muscle at successive stages in tissue culture.

Abstract

SEVERAL studies on tissue cultures of muscles obtained from patients with Duchenne type of muscular dystrophy and from mice and chicken with hereditary forms of dystrophy have been reported.^1-7In these studies, cultures were derived from explants of normal and dystrophic muscles at postnatal stages, and differences in the structure of myoblasts on young muscle fibers were examined. In the present study we initiated the cultures with mononucleated cells obtained from trypsinized muscle of chicken embryos and compared the histochemical features of normal and dystrophic cultures during successive stages of growth. Such a comparative study appears not to have been reported previously. <h3>Materials and Methods</h3> Eggs from chickens with hereditary muscular dystrophy were obtained from the Department of Animal Genetics, University of Connecticut, Storrs, and those from normal chickens (white leghorn strain) from a commercial supplier. The normal and dystrophic eggs were put in the incubator at the