Muscle ultrastructure in the teleost fish

The muscles of teleost fish are different in ultrastructure from those of most other kinds of vertebrate. A distinct difference is that they are much more highly ordered than the frog, rabbit or human muscles conventionally used as vertebrate muscle stereotypes. The improved order permits the full application of powerful techniques such as electron microscopy and image processing, and X-ray diffraction and model building. Here ultrastructural aspects of the red and white fibres in typical teleosts are compared through paired sets of electron micrographs, and ultrastructural details of teleost M-bands and Z-bands obtained from the application of three-dimensional reconstruction methods are described. The potential application of teleost muscle in production of ''Muscle-The Movie'', which it is hoped will help to define the mechanism of force generation, is introduced.