Myosin heavy chain expression in the red, white, and ventricular muscle of juvenile stages of rainbow trout.

Juvenile stages of rainbow trout, smaller parr and older juveniles, termed smolts, show differences in red muscle contractile properties: parr red muscle has faster kinetics and a faster maximum shortening velocity than smolt red muscle. A developmental reduction in the number of MHC isoforms as detected by SDS-PAGE between parr and smolt has also been observed. To investigate whether this shift in contractile kinetics results from differential gene expression, three different MHC cDNA fragments, one each from red, white, and ventricular muscle, were identified. The red muscle and ventricular forms are novel MHCs, and the white muscle form is identical to a published MHC from adult trout white muscle. Tissue and developmental stage-specific expression patterns of these MHC isoforms were examined using isoform-specific RT-PCR. Ventricular muscle typically showed only the ventricular form; 60% parr and 80% smolts expressed the ventricular form only. Approximately half of the white muscle samples of either parr or smolts, 58% and 50%, respectively, expressed only white muscle MHC. Red muscle samples were the most heterogeneous, with red muscle MHC found in combination with either the white or ventricular form or both. Combining samples from the anterior and posterior, 8% of parr red muscle samples expressed solely the red muscle MHC form, and 30% of smolt red muscle samples expressed the red muscle form alone. Variations in the relative contribution of each MHC to the red muscle of parr and smolt may explain observed differences in protein composition and contractile properties. J. Exp. Zool. 290:751-758, 2001.