Altered fibre types in gastrocnemius muscle of high wheel-running selected mice with mini-muscle phenotypes.

Selective breeding of mice for high voluntary wheel running has favoured characteristics that facilitate sustained, aerobically supported activity, including a "mini-muscle" phenotype with markedly reduced hind limb muscle mass, increased mass-specific activities of oxidative enzymes, decreased % myosin heavy chain IIb, and, in the medial gastrocnemius, reduced twitch speed, reduced mass-specific isotonic power, and increased fatigue resistance. To evaluate whether selection has altered fibre type expression in mice with either "mini" or normal muscle phenotypes, we examined fibre types of red and white gastrocnemius. In both the medial and lateral gastrocnemius, the mini-phenotype increased activities of oxidative enzymes and decreased activities of glycolytic enzymes. In red muscle samples, the mini-phenotype markedly changed fibre types, with the % type I and type IIA fibres and the surface area of type IIA fibres increasing; in addition, mice from selected lines in general had an increased % type IIA fibres and larger type I fibres as compared with mice from control lines. White muscle samples from mini-mice showed dramatic structural alterations, with an atypical distribution of extremely small, unidentifiable fibres surrounded by larger, more oxidative fibres than normally present in white muscle. The increased proportion of oxidative fibres and these atypical small fibres together may explain the reduced mass and increased mitochondrial enzyme activities in mini-muscles. These and previous results demonstrate that extension of selective breeding beyond the time when the response of the selected trait (i.e. distance run) has levelled off can still modify the mechanistic underpinnings of this behaviour.

Reduction of type IIb myosin and IIB fibers in tibialis anterior muscle of mini-muscle mice from high-activity lines.

Selective breeding of laboratory house mice (Mus domesticus) for high voluntary wheel running has generated four replicate lines that show an almost threefold increase in daily wheel-running distances as compared with four nonselected control lines. An unusual hindlimb "mini-muscle" phenotype (small muscles, increased mitochondrial enzyme levels, disorganized fiber distribution) has increased in frequency in two of the four replicate selected lines. The gene of major effect that accounts for this phenotype is an autosomal recessive that has been mapped to a 2.6335 Mb interval on MMU11, but not yet identified. This study examined the tibialis anterior muscle to determine whether changes in muscle fiber types could explain such modifications in muscle size and properties. Although selected and control lines did not exhibit systematic differences in the fiber types present in the tibialis anterior muscle, as assessed by electrophoresis of myosin heavy chains (MHC) and by histochemistry, mini-muscle mice lacked type IIB fibers and the corresponding MHCs. Mini-muscle tibialis show increased activities of hexokinase and citrate synthase compared with the normally sized muscles, likely the result of the modified fiber types in the muscle. The mini-muscle phenotype is the major means through which selective breeding for high wheel running has modified the functional capacities of the hindlimb muscles, as normally sized tibialis anterior muscles from control and selected lines did not show general differences in their enzymatic capacities, MHC profiles or fiber type composition, with the exception of an elevated hexokinase activity and a reduced GPa activity in the selected lines.