Amino acid pools in cultured muscle cells

Compartmentalization of cellular amino acid pools occurs in cultures of cardiac and skeletal muscle cells, but the factors involved in this are not clear. We have further defined this problem by analyzing the intracellular free leucine and the transfer-RNA-(tRNA)-bound leucine pool in cultures of skeletal and cardiac muscle incubated with 3H-leucine in the presence and absence of serum and amino acids. Withdrawal of nitrogen substrates caused substantial changes in leucine pool relationships--in particular, a change in the degree to which intracellular free leucine and tRNA-leucine were derived from the culture medium. In separate experiments, the validity of our tRNA measurements was confirmed by measurements of the specific activity of newly synthesized ferritin after iron induction. We discuss the implications of these findings with regard to factors involved in the control of amino acid flux through the cell, as well as with regard to design of experiments using isotopic amino acids to measure rates of amino acid utilization.