Postnatal development of semitendinosus muscle in the dog.

In this study the differentiation of postnatal muscle fibres in dog semitendinosus muscle has been characterized. Several histochemical techniques for myosin ATPase and metabolic activity were used in animals aged between 1 day and 2 months. The results show that at birth there are two types of fibre, whose ATPase activity gradually changes during postnatal development, so that several types of fibre can be identified after 2 months. These finally become the four types of the adult: I, IIA, IIDog, IIC. The main conclusions of the study are that the use of mATPase techniques is appropriate for showing the differentiation between muscle fibres, even at early stages of postnatal development, and that the origin of the four different fibres of the adult can be traced back to early postnatal stages.