Control of protein balance in hypertrophied cardiac muscle.

The levels of intracellular proteins are determined by a balance between their rates of synthesis and degradation. During the development of regression of cardiac hypertrophy, both of these rates can be expected to change. Possible control sites of synthetic and degradation processes are discussed in this article. The following experimental results are presented: (1) Cardiac mitochondrial cytochromes accumulate early after imposition of pressure overload, as a result of an increased rate of synthesis and decreased rate of degradation. (2) The half-life of myosin heavy chains (HC) in the steady state was determined from incorporation kinetics, using leucyl-tRNA as precursor, to be 5-6 days. (3) The existence of a pool of newly synthesized myofilaments which are not fully incorporated into the core of myofibrils is indicated by the incorporation data.