Proteomic analysis of ovine muscle hypertrophy

Two-dimensional electrophoresis was used to investigate the effects of a QTL for muscle hypertrophy on sarcoplasmic protein expression in ovine muscles. In the Belgian Texel breed, the QTL for muscle hypertrophy is localized in the myostatin-encoding gene. Based on microsatellite markers flanking the myostatin gene, we compared the hypertrophied genotype with the normal genotype. The average age of the sheep was 3 mo. Among the 4 muscles studied, in the hypertrophied genotype only the vastus medialis was normal, whereas the semimembranosus, tensor fasciae latae, and LM were hypertrophied. In the hypertrophied genotype, these muscles showed upregulation of enzymes involved in glycolytic metabolism together with oxidative metabolism in LM. Certain chaperone proteins, including glutathione S-transferase-Pi, heat shock protein-27, and heat shock cognate-70, were also more highly expressed, probably due to increased use of energetic pathways. Expression of the iron transport protein transferrin was increased. Alpha-1-antitrypsin was the only protein showing a similar pattern of expression (i.e., less expressed) in all 4 muscles of the hypertrophied genotype. It is suggested that transferrin and alpha-1-antitrypsin may interact to reinforce myogenic proliferative signaling.