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Collagen fibril morphology in developing chick metatarsal tendon: 2. Electron microscope studies

1982; Elsevier BV; Volume: 4; Issue: 7 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0141-8130(82)90082-4

1879-0003

Eric F. Eikenberry, Burton Brodsky, A. S. Craig, David Parry,

Connective tissue disorders research

Transverse section of embryonic chick metatarsal tendons ranging in age from 11 days to 18 days fetal were examined by electron microscopy to determine both the diameters and the lateral arrangements of the cylindrical collagen fibrils. In early developmental stages, from 11 days to 14 days fetal, sharp unimodal distributions of diameters centred near 32 or 40 nm were observed, but increasingly heterogeneous diameters were seen with increasing age. The heterogeneous diameter distributions were not uniform, but showed discrete populations of preferred diameters. The centre-to-centre distance separating the fibrils in the early developmental stages was about twice the fibril diameter and constant with age. Comparison of X-ray diffraction results with these observations indicated that the saptial relationships of the structures are preserved during the preparative procedures for electron microscopy, but that a transverse shrinkage of 25–30% had occurred relative to the wet dimension.