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A Study of the Relationship of Plasma Glutamicoxaloacetic Transaminase Activity to Nutritional Muscular Dystrophy in the Chick¹

Department of Poultry Science and Graduate School of Nutrition, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14850

A study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using plasma glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase (PGOT) activity as an index of the onset and regression of nutritional muscular dystrophy (NMD) in the chick. All experiments were conducted utilizing a time-sequence experimental design in which chicks were fed a dystrophogenic basal diet supplemented with cystine, to prevent dystrophy, from 1 day to 24 days of age. Dystrophy was then induced in chicks by feeding the same dystrophogenic basal diet without the supplementary cystine. Control chicks continued to receive the supplemented basal diet. Dystrophic chicks were fed the dystrophy-inducing basal diet supplemented with either cystine, vitamin E or a combination of both of these nutrients to study the effect of recovery from dystrophy on PGOT activity, and muscular dystrophy (MD) score. PGOT activity increased with the onset of NMD. The elevation of PGOT activity was not transitory, and was of adequate duration to allow its use as an index of the presence of NMD in the chick. In one experiment dystrophic females tended to show greater elevation in PGOT activity as a result of dystrophy than did dystrophic males. Male and female responses were identical in subsequent experiments. Feeding cystine, vitamin E or a combination of both of these nutrients to chicks with NMD resulted in a rapid decline in PGOT activity and a relatively slower regression of muscular lesions. PGOT activity and MD score were highly significantly correlated in the progressive stages but not the regressive stages under these specified experimental conditions. Muscle GOT activity per unit weight of tissue declined, but MGOT activity per unit weight of tissue protein was not changed. It appears from these results that PGOT activity serves as a reliable index of the onset and regression of NMD in the chick. PGOT activity may also serve as an index of the relative severity of lesions during the progressive stages of NMD in the chick.

KEY WORDS: • glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase • muscular dystrophy • chick

¹ Supported in part by Public Health Service Research Grant NB-05632 and by a grant from Hoffmann-LaRoche, Inc., Nutley, N. J. 07110.

² Present address: Campbell Institute for Agricultural Research, Fayetteville, Ark. 72701.

Manuscript received 22 November 1971.