Image analysis based assessment of sarcomere length

We describe a new, image analysis based method for examining sarcomere heterogeneity in single muscle fiber preparations. Specifically, sarcomere lengths are obtained by evaluating two-dimensional Fourier power spectra associated with muscle fiber images. This method offers several advantages over the more commonly employed laser diffraction based sarcomere length assessment including being well suited to the analysis of local sarcomere disorder and also being capable of detecting and quantifying striation skewness.