Figure 3

Wound healing of longitudinal muscle following transection. Body wall sections from animals at (A) 2, (B) 12, (C) 20 and (D) 28 days post-injury (dpi) were labeled with rhodamine-labeled phalloidin to determine the temporal changes in the longitudinal muscle during wound healing. (A) In the 2 dpi animal, only the muscle stumps created by the wound were labeled. (B) By 12 dpi muscle fibers projecting from the wounded muscle terminals can be found across the injury site. (C) Muscle bundles from opposing stumps can be seen to make contact and cover the injury site by 20 dpi but still show a high degree of disorganization. (D) Muscle organization improves by 28 dpi and the density of the muscle bundles increases; however, organization of muscle bundles is still not fully normal, lacking the compact dense structure found in non-injured muscles (see Fig. 1). CM-circular muscle, LM-longitudinal muscle, LMS-longitudinal muscle stumps. X's mark the injury site; The presence of circular muscle depends on the plane of section since the bands of circular muscle are discontinuous. Asterisks show the area where the circular muscle can be found in nearby sections. Bar = 200 μm.