College
Morsani College of Medicine
Mentor Information
Srinivas Tipparaju, PhD
Description
Aging causes a slow and progressive loss of muscle fiber number and size. Sarcopenia is termed as an age-related loss of muscle mass and function. Here, we characterized the aging skeletal muscle phenotype of C57Bl/6J wildtype mice. 30 weeks old (young) and 2 years old (aged) C57Bl/6J wildtype male mice were utilized in this study. The body weight and hind leg muscle weight were recorded during collection. The hind leg muscle Tibialis anterior (TA) was OCT embedded, cut at the mid- belly region, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain as per our previously published protocol. The 20X images of the H&E-stained sections were captured using an Olympus microscope. The histology of the muscle cryosections allowed us to quantify the myofibers cross-sectional area (CSA) and compare between the young vs old mice. This technique will also allow us to quantify the tissue fibrosis using Van Gieson staining, where aging causes an increase in tissue fibrosis. Here, we demonstrate that the 2-year-old male mice displayed a significant decrease in muscle TA weight and body weight compared to the 30 weeks old young male mice. Further analysis of the muscle TA cryosections displayed muscle atrophy phenotype with an increase in the smaller diameter myofibers CSA and with a concomitant decrease in the medium and larger diameter myofibers CSA compared to the young mice muscle cryosections.
The aging muscle phenotype of C57Bl/6J wild-type mice
Aging causes a slow and progressive loss of muscle fiber number and size. Sarcopenia is termed as an age-related loss of muscle mass and function. Here, we characterized the aging skeletal muscle phenotype of C57Bl/6J wildtype mice. 30 weeks old (young) and 2 years old (aged) C57Bl/6J wildtype male mice were utilized in this study. The body weight and hind leg muscle weight were recorded during collection. The hind leg muscle Tibialis anterior (TA) was OCT embedded, cut at the mid- belly region, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain as per our previously published protocol. The 20X images of the H&E-stained sections were captured using an Olympus microscope. The histology of the muscle cryosections allowed us to quantify the myofibers cross-sectional area (CSA) and compare between the young vs old mice. This technique will also allow us to quantify the tissue fibrosis using Van Gieson staining, where aging causes an increase in tissue fibrosis. Here, we demonstrate that the 2-year-old male mice displayed a significant decrease in muscle TA weight and body weight compared to the 30 weeks old young male mice. Further analysis of the muscle TA cryosections displayed muscle atrophy phenotype with an increase in the smaller diameter myofibers CSA and with a concomitant decrease in the medium and larger diameter myofibers CSA compared to the young mice muscle cryosections.
