Ontogenetic changes in skeletal muscle fiber type, fiber diameter and myoglobin concentration in the Northern elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris)

Date
2014-06-10Author
Moore, Colby D.
Concept link
Crocker, Daniel E.
Concept link
Fahlman, Andreas
Concept link
Moore, Michael J.
Concept link
Willoughby, Darryn S.
Concept link
Robbins, Kathleen A.
Concept link
Kanatous, Shane B.
Concept link
Trumble, Stephen J.
Concept link
Metadata
Show full item recordCitable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/6914As published
https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2014.00217DOI
10.3389/fphys.2014.00217Abstract
Northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) (NES) are known to be deep, long-duration divers and to sustain long-repeated patterns of breath-hold, or apnea. Some phocid dives remain within the bounds of aerobic metabolism, accompanied by physiological responses inducing lung compression, bradycardia, and peripheral vasoconstriction. Current data suggest an absence of type IIb fibers in pinniped locomotory musculature. To date, no fiber type data exist for NES, a consummate deep diver. In this study, NES were biopsied in the wild. Ontogenetic changes in skeletal muscle were revealed through succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) based fiber typing. Results indicated a predominance of uniformly shaped, large type I fibers and elevated myoglobin (Mb) concentrations in the longissimus dorsi (LD) muscle of adults. No type II muscle fibers were detected in any adult sampled. This was in contrast to the juvenile animals that demonstrated type II myosin in Western Blot analysis, indicative of an ontogenetic change in skeletal muscle with maturation. These data support previous hypotheses that the absence of type II fibers indicates reliance on aerobic metabolism during dives, as well as a depressed metabolic rate and low energy locomotion. We also suggest that the lack of type IIb fibers (adults) may provide a protection against ischemia reperfusion (IR) injury in vasoconstricted peripheral skeletal muscle.
Description
© The Author(s), 2014. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Frontiers in Physiology 5 (2014): 217, doi:10.3389/fphys.2014.00217.
Collections
Suggested Citation
Frontiers in Physiology 5 (2014): 217The following license files are associated with this item:
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
A fiber optic spectrometry system for measuring irradiance distributions in sea ice environments
Wang, Hangzhou; Chen, Ying; Song, Hong; Laney, Samuel R. (American Meteorological Society, 2014-12)A fiber optic–based spectrometry system was developed to enable automated, long-term measurements of spectral irradiance in sea ice environments. This system utilizes a single spectrometer module that measures the irradiance ... -
Optogenetic visualization of presynaptic tonic inhibition of cerebellar parallel fibers
Berglund, Ken; Wen, Lei; Dunbar, Robert L.; Feng, Guoping; Augustine, George J. (Society for Neuroscience, 2016-05-25)Tonic inhibition was imaged in cerebellar granule cells of transgenic mice expressing the optogenetic chloride indicator, Clomeleon. Blockade of GABAA receptors substantially reduced chloride concentration in granule cells ... -
Preparation of Mn-fiber standards for the efficiency calibration of the delayed coincidence counting system (RaDeCC)
Scholten, Jan C.; Pham, Mai Khanh; Blinova, Oxana; Charette, Matthew A.; Dulaiova, Henrieta; Eriksson, Mats (2010-04)Precise measurements of the short lived radium isotopes 223Ra and 224Ra by means of the delayed coincidence counting system (RaDeCC) rely on an efficiency calibration of this system using Mn-fiber standards for which ...