Fast oxidative muscle fibres

Generally speaking, fish red muscle has higher fractional rates of protein synthesis than white muscle, results which parallel those found from mammals (e.g. Gold-spink et al. 1984). The slow tonic, predominantly oxidative fibres in the leg of the crab Carcinus also have higher fractional rates of protein synthesis than the fast phasic, predominantly glycolytic muscle fibres (El Haj and Houlihan 1987). These wide differences between tissues rates of protein synthesis raise the question of the different proteins synthesised in different tissues. A comparison of the fractional rates of protein synthesis in subcellular fractions from fish red muscle and white muscle has revealed the following features ... 

It is possible, of course, to use direct calorimetry, often in combination with the indirect approach (OUR) to investigate the properties of muscle under different physiological conditions and in the diseased state. Chinet s group [70] found that the slow- and fast-twitch skeletal muscle fibres from the murine model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy had a reduced sarcoplasmic energy metabolism as measured by the combined direct and indirect calorimeter [69]. The possibility that this could be due to diminished glucose availability was then examined [71] but was dismissed in favour of decreased oxidative utilisation of glucose and free fatty acids, conceivably due to defective mitochondria. 

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