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Morphometric analyses of the body and the branches of the normal third interosseous muscle (suspensory ligament) in Standardbreds
Author(s) -
Shikh Alsook M. K.,
Antoine N.,
Piret J.,
Moula N.,
Busoni V.,
Denoix J.M.,
Gabriel A.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
anatomia, histologia, embryologia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1439-0264
pISSN - 0340-2096
DOI - 10.1111/ahe.12038
Subject(s) - suspensory ligament , anatomy , h&e stain , connective tissue , medicine , adipose tissue , staining , pathology
Summary The third interosseous muscle (suspensory ligament, TIOM ) is composed of connective tissue ( CT ) with a variable proportion of muscle ( MT ) and adipose tissue ( AT ). The aim of our study is to quantify the CT , MT and AT within the body and the branches of right thoracic and pelvic limbs TIOM in sound horses to determine whether there are differences in CT , MT and AT between age, sex, limbs and levels. Right limbs from 11 sound horses were collected. Samples from 6 levels of the TIOM were embedded in paraffin or in Tissue‐Tek ® . Most of the paraffin sections were shredded. Using the cryosection, some artefacts appeared. Cryoprotection was carried out, which produced the best results. Hematoxylin–phloxine–saffron and Hematoxylin–eosin gave a good contrast of colours between the tissues observed allowing the use of an image analysis programme to calculate percentage of each tissue within the TIOM . The percentage of MT and AT decreased significantly ( P < 0.0001), whereas the percentage of CT increased significantly ( P < 0.0001) with age and when descending from the proximal to the distal level of the TIOM . The percentage of MT was significantly higher ( P < 0.0001) in females than males, while the percentage of CT was significantly higher ( P < 0.0001) in males than females. The percentage of AT was significantly higher ( P = 0.0278) in pelvic limbs than in thoracic limbs. These results confirm the variation in tissue composition within the TIOM of sound horses.