Changes in motor innervation and histochemical pattern of muscle fibers in some congenital myopathies

Abstract

Changes in motor innervation were compared with histologic and histochemical pattern of muscle fibers in three biopsies of central core disease, four biopsies of nemaline myopathy, one biopsy of myotubular myopathy, and three biopsies of mitochondrial myopathy. Evidence of collateral reinnervation was obtained only in one biopsy from central core disease. In other biopsies, no structural or ultrastructural abnormality of axis cylinders, myelin, or myoneural junction suggesting denervation were observed. The only relevant change found in centronuclear myopathy and to a lesser extent in nemaline myopathy was an unusual smallness and simplification of motor endings, suggesting delayed or impaired maturation. Muscle fibers strongly reactive for both adenosinetriphosphatase and nicotinamide-adenine dinucleotide diaphorase, observed in central core disease and mitochondrial myopathy, were not associated with increased terminal innervation ratio.