Adaptive potentials of skeletal muscle in young and aging rats

We compared responses of the fast extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and tibialis anterior (TA) muscles in young (15-week) and aging (101-week) male Brown Norwegian rats to 50 days of chronic low-frequency stimulation (CLFS, 10 Hz, 10 hours/day). After 50 days of CLFS, the EDL muscles of the young (22-week) and aging (108-week) rats displayed similar increases in type IIA fibers, relative concentration of myosin heavy chain MHCIIa, elevations in mitochondrial citrate synthase and 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase activities, and similar decreases in glycolytic enzyme activities (glyceraldehydephosphate dehydrogenase, lactate dehydrogenase). TA muscle in young rats contained a few cytochrome c oxidase negative (COX-) type I fibers. Their number was approximately 2-fold elevated by CLFS. Conversely, aging muscle, which contained a slightly higher amount of COX- fibers than young TA muscle, responded to CLFS with a significant decrease in COX- fibers. The appearance of small COX-positive type I fibers in stimulated aging muscle indicated that regenerating type I fibers "diluted" the COX-deficient fiber population.