CYTOLOGICAL LOCALIZATION OF GLYCOGEN IN CULTURED SKELETAL MUSCLE

Abstract

The periodic acid Schiff stain was used to demonstrate the cellular location of glycogen formed and stored by chick embryo skeletal muscle cells newly grown in vitro without innervation. No glycogen was found in single myoblasts. In the myoblastic and less mature myocytic straps, there were irregular-sized granules of glycogen in the cytoplasm, especially in the perinuclear areas. Much glycogen was formed in the more mature cultured myocytic straps, and in a pattern like that of innervated adult skeletal muscle cells in vivo. There was glycogen in the perinuclear and subsarcolemmal cytoplasm and in alternating wide and narrow bands, tentatively interpreted as I and M bands respectively.