Molecular forms of acetylcholinesterase and pseudocholinesterase in chicken skeletal muscles: their distribution and change with muscular dystrophy.

Chicken muscles offer several significant advantages for the use of cholinesterase as a marker of nerve-muscle interactions. A series of molecular forms of chicken muscle acetylcholinesterase (AChE), and likewise of pseudocholinesterase (psi ChE), has been defined. The form of AChE inside the endplates of fast-twitch muscle is H2c (20 S), with a collagenous tail. The same is true for psi ChE. The changes in these forms in the muscle with embryonic development, with muscle fibre-type composition and under the influence of inherited muscular dystrophy, are described quantitatively.