Figure 5

Myofiber branching in the EDL. (A) A singularly innervated branched myofiber expressing DsRed, DAPI in blue and AChR cluster in green. Scale bar = 50 μm. (B) Branches can also rejoin the initial fiber and/or (C) branch at the ends of myofibers. Percentages in the images in A-C show the proportion of myofibers with the respective branching phenotype. (D) Shown is an example of a myofiber with multiple branch points. Approximately 21% of myofibers with branches had multiple branch points. (E) Mean +/- S.D. of fiber branching increases with age. **P <0.01 compared to 4 weeks and ***P <0.001 compared to 12 weeks (n = 4-6). (F) Median +/- 75% diameter of unbranched mdx EDL myofibers compared to the combined diameter of branched myofibers at 5 months of age. ***P <0.001.