Figure 4

Foetal muscle enzymes related to protein degradation. Muscle chymotrypsin enzyme activity (A), the 20S proteasome subunit (B), cathepsin H enzyme activity (C), and calpain activity (D) in foetal muscle from tumour-bearing pregnant rats that were subjected to a leucine-rich or control diet. Representative image showing the expression of the 20S proteasome subunit from each different animal per group; the 20S expression was corrected for actin expression, which was used as a loading control (data not shown) (for details, see Methods). The minimum number of animals used per group was 8. Legend: C – control rats; L – rats fed a leucine-rich diet; W – tumour-bearing rats; LW - tumour-bearing rats fed a leucine-rich diet; Cp – rats subjected to a paired-nutrition intake identical to the rats in Group W; and Lp – rats subjected to a leucine-rich diet whose nutrition was paired to the intake of the rats in Group LW. * P < 0.05; significantly different compared to group C. • P < 0.05; significantly different compared to group L. a P < 0.05; significantly different from groups W and LW. # P < 0.05, significantly different from group W.