Comparative enzymology of AMP deaminase, adenylate kinase, and creatine kinase in vertebrate heart and skeletal muscle: the characteristic AMP deaminase levels of skeletal versus cardiac muscle are reversed in the North American toad

Abstract

The specific activity of three characteristic enzymes, adenylate deaminase, adenylate kinase, and creatine kinase, in the skeletal muscles and heart of a variety of vertebrate land animals, including the human, are surveyed. Data from this study and available studies in the literature suggest that adenosine monophosphate deaminase in land vertebrates is quite high in white skeletal muscle, usually somewhat lower in red muscle, and 15-to 500-fold lower in cardiac muscle. Adenosine monophosphate deaminase is active primarily under ischemic or hypoxic conditions which occur frequently in white muscle, only occasionally in red muscle, and ought never occur in heart muscle, and this may therefore account for observed enzyme levels. The common North American toad, Bufo americanus, provides a striking exception to the rule with cardiac adenosine monophosphate deaminase as high as in mammalian skeletal muscle, whereas its skeletal muscle level of adenosine monophosphate deaminase is several times lower. The exceptional levels in the toad are not due to a change in substrate binding and are not accompanied by comparable change in the level of adenylate or creatine kinase. Nor do they signal any major change in isozyme composition, since a human muscle adenosine monophosphate deaminase-specific antiserum reacts with toad muscle adenosine monophosphate deaminase, but not with toad heart adenosine monophosphate deaminase. They do not represent any general anuran evolutionary strategy, since the bullfrog (Rana catesbeiana) and the giant tropic toad (Bufo marinus) have the usual vertebrate pattern of adenosine monophosphate deaminase distribution. Lower skeletal muscle activities in anurans may simply represent the contribution of tonic muscle fiber bundles containing low levels of adenosine monophosphate deaminase, but the explanation for the extremely high adenosine monophosphate deaminase levels in heart ventricular muscle is not apparent.