Phosphorylase isoenzymes in normal and myophosphorylase-deficient human heart

Phosphorylase isoenzymes were studied by acrylamide-slab electrophoresis in normal tissues and in the heart of a child with a fatal infantile form of myophosphorylase deficiency. Of the three bands present in normal human heart, two were missing in the patient's heart: the slow "muscle" isoenzyme and the intermediate band. Only the fast "cardiac" isoenzyme remained. When extracts of normal skeletal muscle and the patient's heart were mixed in appropriate conditions, the intermediate band reappeared in the electropherogram. Phosphorylase activity in extracts of the patient's heart was not inhibited by antibodies against purified enzyme from mature human muscle, whereas normal human heart phosphorylase was inhibited by approximately 50%. These results suggest that the intermediate band of human heart phosphorylase is a hybrid of skeletal and cardiac muscle isoenzymes. Retained activity of the cardiac isoenzyme may explain why patients genetically lacking skeletal muscle phosphorylase do not have clinical heart disease.