Phosphorylation of Ethanolamine in Catabolism : Biodegradative Adenosine Triphosphate-Ethanolamine Phosphotransferase and Related Enzymes in Bacteria

It will be noted from the large standard deviations of the top half of Table 1 that the material proved rather variable. There are some indications that 3,3-tetramethyleneglutarate has a greater effect on fructose pool size in dystrophic muscle, but this cannot be proved statistically on this sample. The lower half of Table 1 shows an effect of 3,3tetramethyleneglutarate on fructose labelling, but no statistically significant difference between ‘dystrophic’ and ‘other’ muscle on such small samples. It may be seen that there is little difference between fibre-bundle preparations and homogenates except that 3,3tetramethyleneglutarate decreased the total, excluding glucose, label uniformly in homogenates. When the results for fibres and homogenates are combined (giving a comparison between five ‘dystrophic’ and seven ‘other’ specimens) then it is found that the effect of 3,3-tetramethyleneglutarate on fructose labelling ( % of total, excluding glucose) is greater in ‘dystrophic’ muscle than in ‘other’. The value in the presence of 3,3-tetramethyleneglutarate, as a percentage of control value for ‘other’ muscle specimens (meanfsm.), was 85.6f45.9%; for ‘dystrophic’ specimens the mean was 52.5&29.0”/, (0.2<P<0.1). These results, although comparing two rather heterogeneous groups of patient material, demonstrate that inhibition of aldose reductase causes a significant decrease in the metabolism of glucose to fructose and other substances. Further, the effects on fructose formation are greater in dystrophic muscle, confirming earlier results (Ellis et al., 1973; Strickland & Ellis, 1973) that the aldose reductase pathway of glucose utilization is of greater significance in childhood muscular dystrophy than in other conditions of muscle.