Fibre types, calcium-sequestering proteins and metabolic enzymes in denervated and chronically stimulated muscles of the rat.

1. Fibre types, Ca2+-sequestering proteins (parvalbumin, sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase), enzyme activities of energy metabolism, and lactate dehydrogenase isozymes were studied in extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and soleus muscles of adult rats after denervation and direct stimulation for 45-61 days. The stimulation resembled the firing patterns of normal motor units (Hennig & Lømo, 1985) in either soleus (20 Hz, high amount) or EDL (150 Hz, low and high amount). 2. Low- and high-amount 150 Hz stimulation maintained essentially normal properties in the denervated EDL and induced many EDL-like properties in the denervated soleus, e.g. pronounced increases in Ca2+-ATPase and parvalbumin contents, a rise in the glycolytic enzyme activities, as well as a reversal of the lactate dehydrogenase H/M subunit ratio. The 150 Hz high-amount stimulation was not as efficient as the 150 Hz low amount in maintaining the fast properties of denervated EDL with the exception of the enzymes of aerobic oxidative metabolism. High-amount 20 Hz stimulation maintained essentially normal properties in the soleus but induced only moderate slow muscle characteristics in the EDL. 3. The maintenance of essentially normal properties by 'native' and the changes induced by 'foreign' stimulus patterns in the absence of the nerve indicate that evoked muscle activity plays a major role in controlling the phenotypic expression of muscle properties. However, the different responses of the denervated fast- and slow-twitch muscles to identical stimulus patterns further suggest that rat EDL and soleus muscles contain intrinsically different muscle fibres.