Chronic stimulation of mammalian muscle: enzyme changes in individual fibers.

Single fibers of rabbit fast-twitch tibialis anterior (TA) muscles were analyzed after continuous low-frequency stimulation for up to 8 wk. After 2-5 wk, every fiber showed higher levels of citrate synthase, hexokinase, and 3-oxoacid CoA-transferase than any control fiber; in some cases these levels were 2-10 times higher (well above any found even in the control soleus, a slow-twitch muscle). Average levels of malate dehydrogenase and alanine transaminase also rose dramatically, but peak single fiber levels were not much above the highest in controls. These differential effects confirm at the single fiber level that chronic stimulation can alter mitochondrial composition. Lactate dehydrogenase, fructose-bisphosphatase, and adenylate kinase declined to levels far below those of any control TA fiber, and, in the case of fructose-bisphosphatase, to within the activity range of control soleus fibers. According to their staining reaction for myofibrillar ATPase, TA fibers were initially 23% type IIA, and 74% type IIB, but by 5 wk these had been converted to a mixture of type I, IIA, and IIC fibers. At 5 wk, levels of lactate dehydrogenase, adenylate kinase, and malate dehydrogenase were characteristic of their (new) ATPase type, but 3-oxoacid CoA transferase had increased to levels 6-15 times higher than in control fibers of the same type.