Glycogen replenishment following exercise: effects of denervation and tenotomy

To examine the role of the nervous system in the rapid replenishment of muscle glycogen that occurs after exhaustive exercise, glycogen stores and glycogen synthetase activity of normal gastrocnemius muscles of untrained and trained guinea pigs were compared to glycogen and synthetase activity of trained gastrocnemius muscles that were denervated or tenotomized immediately after exhaustive exercise and then allowed to recover for 48 h. The trained tenotomized muscles, but not the denervated muscles, had significantly (P smaller than 0.05) less glycogen than the trained normal muscles. These results suggest that neither nerve impulse conduction nor tropic substances contained in neural tissue proximal to the site of denervation mediate glycogen replenishment after exercise. The active, glucose 6-phosphate independent (I) form of glycogen synthetase activity was reduced by both denervation and tenotomy at 48 h after exercise with no significant (P greater than 0.05) differences detected for the total of I and D (glucose 6-phosphate dependent) synthetase activity. Synthetase I relative to total synthetase activity was similar in trained and untrained normal muscles, both of which had significantly (P smaller than 0.05) greater relative I activities than denervated or tenotomized muscles. These synthetase data show that elevated glycogen stores following recovery from exercise may be observed in the absence of increased levels of glycogen synthetase activity.