Disorganization of glycolytic and gluconeogenic pathways in skeletal muscle of aged persons studied by histometric and enzymatic methods.
Histometric data obtained by the point counting method, and the enzyme patterns of glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, fatty degradation and energy transfer have been determined in the same muscle specimens of m. vastus lateralis from 12 untrained patients between the ages of 4 and 78 years who suffered no disturbance of the neuromuscular system. Activities of 18 enzymes have been related to pure muscle weight corrected for fatty and connective tissue content, as well as to single fibre weight. A comparable muscle enzyme pattern was found in persons of around 20 years old and around 70 years old when expressed per gram of single fibre weight. However, in terms of grams of pure muscle weight, a significant activity decrease with age was obtained for 6-phosphofructokinase, triosephosphate dehydrogenase and phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, whereas activity of hexose diphosphatase increased with age as also did 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase activity. Five other cytoplasmic enzyme activities involved in glycolysis and energy transfer did not change significantly with age, nor did lysosomal acid phosphatase. The mitochondrial enzyme activities of gluconeogenesis (for example, pyruvate carboxylase, malic enzyme) were diminished to a lesser extent as also the auxiliary enzymes glutamic-oxaloacetic transminase and glutamic-pyruvic transaminase; glutamate dehydrogenase activity remained unchanged. The findings indicate a distinct disorganization of cytoplasmic glycolysis and gluconeogenesis pathways in presenile human skeletal muscle, confirming the histometric data already described. They cannot be explained by changes with age in numerical or areal ratio of type I and type II fibres.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D001706:Biopsy; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004789:Enzyme Activation; D005260:Female; D005943:Gluconeogenesis; D006019:Glycolysis; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009132:Muscles / Q000378:metabolism*