The hypothesis in the Bulfield (1984) paper is that mdx mice express the same muscle degeneration phenotype as human Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy patients. To test this, mice were sacrificed for histological analysis using H&E staining. The three-week-old mouse (fig 2a) shows irregularly shaped and sized muscle cells with significant extracellular space between them. Many nuclei can be seen, often more than one for each cell. The nuclei are irregularly scattered throughout the cells, both in location and number. However, there are very few extracellular nuclei. The nine-week-old mouse (fig 2b) has much more tightly packed myocytes, and they are smaller and more uniform in size. Most of the nuclei are centered in the cells, and they appear…show more content… Additionally, there are white striations in many of the cells and white stain rimming the edges of the myocytes. Figure 2c shows an adult mouse, in this slide the myocytes are much larger, more irregularly shaped, and less densely packed than those in figure 2b. The larger amounts of white extracellular matrix are comparably to figure 2a, however, the myocytes are stained darker and more uninformedly than in figure 2c. Furthermore, there are fewer nuclei and they are more contained to either the center of the cell or the extracellular matrix. A few myocytes also show the white striations found in figure 2b. Figure 2d also shows an adult mouse, but with a longitudinal cut slide instead of the cross-section cuts found in the previous figures. It appears to show two myocytes with approximately ten nuclei each. The nuclei are in near perfect lines in the center of the cell. The myocytes themselves have a streaky stain, with blocks of white and darker coloration, along with darker horizontal lines regularly…show more content… To test this, histological sections were taken muscle biopsies of patients. The sections were stained with H&E and an immunomarker for dystrophin. In the wild type, the H&E staining showed regularly sized cells with little extracellular matrix (only one thick line). The nuclei are spaced out along the edges of the cells. The staining for dystrophin showed thick bands outlining all of the myocytes. The Becker’s Muscular Dystrophy patient shows more irregularly sized and generally larger myocytes in the H&E staining, and a nuclear phenotype similar to the wild type, with the exception of a few nuclei in the extracellular matrix. The BMD slide also showed increased white staining rimming cells and more large areas of white, indicating extracellular matrix or fibrosis. The immunostaining was much fainter, with dystrophin not fully covering the edges of all the myocytes. The dystrophin was also less uniform, with some bright and some totally absent areas along the edges of the myocytes. The DMD patient showed an extremely irregular myocyte shape and size distribution in the H&E staining. There are also increased numbers and variability of location for the nuclei, with more extracellular nuclei than the BMD slide. However, most of the nuclei still remain on the edges of the myocytes. There are large amounts of
