title: Oxidative deterioration of the muscle proteins during nutritional muscular dystrophy in chicks.
abstract: Nutritional muscular dystrophy in the chick results from the simultaneous deficiency of vitamin E and cystine. Being a biological antioxidant, vitamin E might be functional in maintaining a proper redox state of the sulfur-containing amino acid in the proteins. The analyses of protein-bound sulfhydryls and disulfides at onset of muscular dystrophy in young chicks were carried out. The ratio of disulfide to sulfhydryls increased two- to three-fold in dystrophic muscle as compared to that in the control muscle proteins. Dystrophic and normal muscle proteins also were subjected to SDS-gel electrophoresis. Proteins of low molecular weight, supposedly derived from proteolysis, were present in the gels of the dystrophic muscle and absent in those of normal muscle extracts. As a result of these studies, a chemical model has been proposed to explain the oxidative deterioration of proteins in nutritional muscular dystrophy due to vitamin E deficiency.
mesh_terms: D000603:Amino Acids, Sulfur / Q000378:metabolism; D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens / Q000378:metabolism*; D003553:Cystine / Q000172:deficiency*; D008954:Models, Biological; D009124:Muscle Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D009137:Muscular Dystrophy, Animal / Q000209:etiology / Q000378:metabolism*; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D011485:Protein Binding; D014811:Vitamin E Deficiency / Q000150:complications* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000603:Amino Acids, Sulfur; D009124:Muscle Proteins; D003553:Cystine