Effects of diet consistency on the expression of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), IGF receptors and IGF binding proteins during the development of rat masseter muscle soon after weaning

A soft diet facilitates the development of faster-type fibres in rat masseter muscle in the 9 days after weaning compared with a hard diet. To determine whether insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), IGF receptors (IGFRs) and IGF binding proteins (IGFBPs) are involved in this fibre-type alteration, the expression of myosin heavy chain (MHC), IGF, IGFR and IGFBP mRNAs in the masseter muscle of rats fed a hard or soft diet for 9 days after weaning was analysed using competitive, reverse transcriptase–polymerase chain reaction. A soft diet decreased the expression of MHC IIa (slower type) by 70%, but increased the expression of MHC IIx (intermediate type) and IIb (faster type) by 80 and 582%, respectively, compared with a hard diet. These findings verified that a soft diet facilitates the development of faster-type fibres in rat masseter muscle compared with a hard diet. A soft diet induced reductions of 25–76% (P<0.05–0.01) in the expression of IGF-I, IGF-II, IGFR2, IGFBP4 and IGFBP6 compared with a hard diet, but induced a 25% (P<0.05) increase only in expression of IGFBP3. These findings suggest that the changes in expression of IGF-I, IGF-II, IGFR2, IGFBP3, IGFBP4 and IGFBP6 are associated with the fibre-type alteration of rat masseter muscle in response to diet consistency soon after weaning.