Parabiotic reinnervation in normal and dystrophic mice. Part 1. Muscle weight and physiological studies.

A technique called parabiotic reinnervation has been developed. This technique consisted of suturing the sectioned peripheral end of the common peroneal nerve of a normal mouse, strain 129 ReJ +/+ to that of the distal stump remaining after sectioning that same nerve in a dystrophic mouse, strain 129 ReJ dy/dy. The animals were then parabiosed and allowed to recover and thus it was possible to innervate a dystrophic muscle with a normal nerve and vice-versa. This made it possible to test the hypothesis that a derangement of the trophic function normally exerted by a nerve on a muscle might be an element in the pathogenesis of muscular dystrophy in the adult mouse. Studies on the weights and isometric twitch characteristics of such parabiotically reinnervated muscles led to the conclusion that a derangement of the trophic function exerted by a nerve on a muscle is not an element in the pathogenesis of muscular dystrophy in the adult 129 ReJ dy/dy strain of mouse.