ATP depletion in slow-twitch red muscle of rat.

Rat slow-twitch muscle, in contrast to fast-twitch muscle, maintains its ATP content near normal during intense stimulation conditions that produce rapid fatigue. An extensive depletion of adenine nucleotide content by the deamination of AMP to IMP + NH3, typical of fast-twitch muscle, does not occur. We evaluated whether this response of slow-twitch muscle could be simply due to failure of synaptic transmission or related to cellular conditions influencing enzyme activity. Stimulation of soleus muscles in situ via the nerve or directly in the presence of curare at 120 tetani/min for 3 min resulted in extensive fatigue but normal ATP contents. Thus the lack of ATP depletion must be related to cellular events distal to neuromuscular transmission. Even nerve and direct muscle stimulation (with curare) during ischemia did not cause a large depletion of ATP or a large elevation of lactate content (12.0 +/- 0.7 mumol/g), even though the decline in tension was essentially complete. However, if the same tension decline during ischemia was prolonged by stimulating for 10 min at 12 tetani/min a large decrease in ATP (2.24 +/- 0.09 mumol/g) and increase in IMP (2.47 +/- 0.16 mumol/g) and lactate (30.4 +/- 2.0 mumol/g) content occurred. Thus adenine nucleotide deamination to IMP can occur in slow-twitch muscle during specific contraction conditions. The cellular events leading to the activation of AMP deaminase require an intense contraction condition and may be related to acidosis caused by a high lactate content.