Comparison of traditional measurements with macroglycogen and proglycogen analysis of muscle glycogen

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Traditionally, there have been two methods for measuring total muscle glycogen (Glytot), either by acid hydrolysis (AC) or by enzymatic hydrolysis (EZ). As well, it has been determined that rodent muscle contains two pools of glycogen, macroglycogen (MG) and proglycogen (PG). This MG/PG determination of Glytothas never been compared with AC or EZ methods, nor has it been determined whether the two pools exist in human skeletal muscle. A detailed comparison of the three methods was performed by using both rodent and human muscle. It was found that repeated analysis of independent portions of muscle generally gave coefficients of variation of totin rodent muscle and in human samples when Glytotwas low but increased to ∼40% when Glytotwas high. It was found that AC and EZ Glytotwere not statistically different ( P < 0.05), nor was there a difference between the MG+PG Glytotand that determined by AC or EZ. The Glytotfrom MG+PG extraction had a strong correlation with the values obtained by either AC ( r = 1.0) or EZ ( r = 0.96). These data suggest that MG+PG do exist in human skeletal muscle and can be measured reliably in biopsy-sized samples. All three methods give an accurate representation of human Glytotand are comparable in their precision.