Convergent changes in muscle metabolism depend on duration of high-altitude ancestry across Andean waterfowl

We examined seven high-altitude waterfowl that have inhabited the Andes (3812-4806m elevation) over varying evolutionary time scales, to elucidate changes in biochemical pathways of energy metabolism in flight muscle relative to low-altitude sister-taxa. Convergent changes across high-altitude taxa included increased hydroxyacyl-coA dehydrogenase and succinate dehydrogenase activities, decreased lactate dehydrogenase, pyruvate kinase, creatine kinase, and cytochrome c oxidase activities, and increased myoglobin content. ATP synthase activity increased in only the longest established high-altitude taxa, whereas hexokinase activity increased in only newly established taxa. Therefore, changes in pathways of lipid oxidation, glycolysis, and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation are common strategies to cope with high-altitude hypoxia, but some changes require longer evolutionary time to arise.
Source: eLife - Category: Biomedical Science Tags: Evolutionary Biology Source Type: research