A comparison of two ATPase based schemes for histochemical muscle fibre typing in various mammals

A comparative study was performed on the fibre populations in tibialis anterior muscles of mouse, rat, guinea pig, rabbit, cat and dog using the two different methods of histochemical staining for myofibrillar ATPase after acid (Brooke and Kaiser 1970) or alkaline preincubations (Guth and Samaha 1970). For all species a complete correspondence existed between type I (Brooke and Kaiser 1970) and beta fibres (Samaha et al. 1970). Gross correspondence (greater than 85%) existed between IIA and IIB (Brooke and Kaiser 1970) and alpha beta and alpha fibres (Samaha et al. 1970) respectively in mouse, guinea pig, rabbit, cat and dog. In the case of mouse and dog, this high degree of correspondence was based on the assumption that mouse tibialis anterior contains no type I and the dog no type IIB fibres. For the rat, a pronounced overlap existed between IIA fibres on the one hand and alpha beta and alpha fibres on the other hand as well as between IIB fibres and alpha beta and alpha fibres. These observations lead to the conclusion that the two classification schemes are not interchangeable for all species and that the two terminologies should be used only in relation with the methods from which they were derived.