Growth and muscle protein turnover in the chick

Abstract

The growth rates of young chicks were varied from 0 to 10% per day by manipulation of the adequacy of the amino acid and energy supply. The rates of protein synthesis in the white breast (pectoralis thoracica) muscle and the dark leg (gastrocnemius and peronaeus longus) muscles were estimated by feeding l-[U-14C]tyrosine in amino acid/agar-gel diets (‘dietary infusion’). This treatment rapidly and consistently produced an isotopic equilibrium in the expired CO2 and in the free tyrosine of plasma and the muscles. Wholebody protein synthesis in 2-week-old chicks was estimated from the tyrosine flux and was 6.4g/day per 100g body wt. In 1-week-old chicks the rate of protein synthesis was more rapid in the breast muscles than in the leg muscles, but decreased until the rates were similar in 2-week-old birds. Synthesis was also more rapid in fast-growing Rock Cornish broilers than in medium-slow-growing New Hampshire×Single Comb White Leghorn chicks. No or barely significant decrease in the high rates of protein synthesis, in the protein/RNA ratio and in the activity of RNA for protein synthesis occurred in non- or slow-growing chicks fed on diets deficient in lysine, total nitrogen or energy. Thus the machinery of protein synthesis in the young chick seems to be relatively insensitive to dietary manipulation. In the leg muscles, there was a small but significant correlation between the fractional rate of growth and protein synthesis. A decrease in the fractional rate of degradation, however, appeared to account for much of the accumulation of muscle protein in rapidly growing birds. In addition, the rapid accumulation of breast-muscle protein in rapidly growing chicks appeared to be achieved almost entirely by a marked decrease in the fractional rate of degradation.