A morphometric study on the nexus of rat cardiac muscle.

A morphometric study of the nexus of rat cardiac muscle was carried out. The nexus surface of one intercalated disk of one 15 microm thick fiber is found to range between 47 microm(2) and 94 microm(2), the latter value taking into account the maximal underestimation caused by tangential sectioning. Dividing the lower, minimal value by the surface of the observed subunits (90 A periodicity), one obtains for one intercalated disk 6.7 x 10(5) subunits, each of them assumed to be permeated by a central pore. These pores are thought to be equivalent to intercellular channels in a recently proposed model. Taking our morphometric and recently reported physiological values, this model is examined for its consistency with a low resistance pathway between cardiac muscle cells.