Succinic Dehydrogenase Levels in Striated Muscle in Relation to Male Hormone1

THERE are two well recognized instances where striated muscle has been observed to undergo marked atrophic changes following castration in the male. Papanicolaou and Falk (1938) observed this to occur in temporal muscles of the male guinea pig, and Wainman and Shipounoff (1941) indicated that similar changes occurred in the perineal musculature of the male rat. As interest in the problems of the mechanism of hormone action through modifications of intra-cellular enzyme concentration and activity has increased, it seemed that studies of pertinent enzyme systems in this type of skeletal muscle should be considered. In this report, succinic dehydrogenase was measured in the striated muscle of the perineal complex of male rats following castration, and after treatment of young males with testosterone proprionate. Succinic dehydrogenase was chosen because other investigators had studied the levels of this enzyme in certain striated muscle following atrophy induced by other methods, namely, by vitamin E deficiency (Houchin, 1942), (Basinski and Hummel, 1947), and by denervation (Knowlton and Hines, 1934).