Increase in the amount of elongation factor 2 in chicken muscular dystrophy

The amount of elongation factor 2 (EF2) in the cytoplasm and ribosome of breast muscle cell from normal and dystrophic strains of chicken was measured. Concentration in the cytoplasm of 20-day-old embryonic dystrophic muscle was higher than that in normal muscle, but no difference in content was found in muscles of 15-day-old embryos. The amount of EF2 bound to ribosomes was identical in normal and dystrophic muscles during all stages of development. Peptide mapping patterns of partial proteolytic fragments of EF2 from normal and dystrophic chicken breast muscles were similar. The increase in cytoplasmic protein synthetic activity of dystrophic breast muscles reported previously seems to be due to the corresponding increase in the number of EF2 molecules rather than to their modification in dystrophic muscle.