Comparative study of metabolic differentiation of foetal muscle in normal and double-muscled cattle

Abstract Studies of the contractile differentiation of foetal muscles in normal and double-muscled cattle have shown that double-muscled foetal muscles display comparative delayed contractile differentiation. We compared the metabolic differentiation of foetal muscles in normal and double-muscled cattle, for which no data were available. The semitendinosus (ST) muscle was excised from normal and double-muscled cattle foetuses aged 110–260 days. Isocitrate dehydrogenase (ICDH) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activities, respectively representative of aerobic oxidative and anaerobic glycolytic metabolism, were assayed. The five LDH isozymes were separated by electrophoresis under non-denaturing conditions and assayed by densitometry. ICDH activity was weaker in the ST of double-muscled foetuses than in that of normal ones throughout gestation, and it increased later in the double-muscled foetuses than in normal ones. In contrast, the LDH activity increased at 180 days in both. It was greater in the double-muscled beyond that time. The proportion of LDH-M subunit was higher at all foetal ages in the double-muscled. Overall, these results show that: (1) the metabolic differentiation of muscle fibre occurs during the last third of foetal growth in both normal and double-muscled cattle; and (2) the differentiation of aerobic oxidative metabolism is delayed in double-muscled foetuses compared with normal ones.