Intramuscular enzyme abnormalities of dystrophic chickens compared to those of dystrophic mice.

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Abstract
The enzymatic changes in dystrophic chickens were compared to those of dystrophic mice. The activities of 14 kinds of aminopeptidases, 5 kinds of endopeptidase, 4 kinds of glycosidases, phosphatase, esterase and ribonuclease were measured in muscles of control and dystrophic chickens. When the enzyme activities were expressed as specific activity/unit weight of organs, only some of them were significantly elevated in dystrophic chickens; e.g., alanine aminopeptidase (Ala-AP), Gly-AP and cathepsin D. The activities of .alpha.-D-glycosidase, .alpha.-D-galactosidase and .alpha.-D-mannosidase were significantly decreased. Muscular protein contents of dystrophic chickens tended to be lower than those of controls. These observations offer a striking contrast with that obtained in the study on dystrophic mice. When expressed as specific activity/mg protein, many enzyme activities were significantly elevated, suggesting an extensive abnormality of metabolism in dystrophic chickens. Among 14 kinds of aminopeptidase activities, highly significant elevations were seen especially in AP-A, AP-B, Gly-AP, Ala-AP, Ser-AP, Pro-AP, Leu-AP, Met-AP and Trp-AP. A statistical approach suggested a significant correlation between the aminopeptidase changes of dystrophic chickens with those of dystrophic mice. In addition to aminopeptidases, there were highly significant increases in the activities of cathepsin D, .alpha.-D-glucosidase, .beta.-D-galactosidase, .alpha.-D-mannosidase, esterase and RNase. The intramuscular metabolic abnormality of dystrophic chickens apparently generally differ from but partly resemble those of dystrophic mice.