The activities of some enzymes concerned with energy metabolism in mammalian muscles of differing pigmentation

Abstract

1. Extractable hexokinase activity was measured in the red and white skeletal muscles of the rabbit and in the hearts and diaphragms of four animal species differing markedly in size. Activities vary over a 40-fold range, being least in white skeletal muscle of the laboratory rabbit and greatest in mouse heart. 2. Hexokinase activities correlate approximately with capacities to undertake reactions of the tricarboxylic acid cycle as determined by succinate oxidase assays. Both enzyme activities seem best related to the average contractile-energy expenditure per unit weight of muscle over an extended period, rather than to the rapidity of individual contractions. 3. Hexokinase and succinate oxidase activities cannot be related to a muscle's content of soluble pigment. They display an inverse relationship with activities of phosphorylase and glycolytic enzymes, but only within the group of rabbit skeletal muscles whose oxidative capacities are at the lower end of the observed range. 4. Total glycogen-UDP glucosyltransferase activities do not vary significantly between rabbit skeletal muscles, although those of hexokinase differ by about sixfold. On the average, glucose 6-phosphate is probably oxidized directly. However, observations cited in the literature suggest that muscles with an active hexokinase may well preferentially accumulate glycogen when glucose is present in excess of the fibres' capacity to oxidize it. 5. When considered with published results obtained in vivo, the present findings indicate that phosphorylase has a minor role in the energy expenditure of muscles with a predominantly oxidative metabolism. In these, the major substrates appear to be blood glucose, fatty acids and possibly lipids. 6. The histochemical criteria by which muscle fibres are commonly described as red or white are inadequate.