Modulation of MHC isoforms in functionally overloaded and exercised rat plantaris fibers. J. Appl. Physiol. 83(1): 280-290, 1997.-The effects of 1 and 10 wk of functional overload (FO) of the rat plantaris with (FO Tr ) and without daily endurance treadmill training on its myosin heavy chain (MHC) composition were studied. After 1 and 10 wk of FO, plantaris mass was 22 and 56% greater in FO and 37 and 94% greater, respectively, in FO Tr rats compared with agematched controls. At 1 wk, pure type I and pure type IIa MHC fibers were hypertrophied in FO (39 and 44%) and FO Tr (70 and 87%) rats. By 10 wk all fiber types comprising .5% of the fibers sampled showed a hypertrophic response in both FO groups. One week of FO increased the percentage of hybrid (containing both type I and type IIa MHC) fibers and of fibers containing embryonic MHC. By 10 wk, the percentage of pure type I MHC fibers was ,40% in both FO groups compared with 15% in controls, and the percentage of fibers containing embryonic MHC was similar to that in controls. Sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis analyses showed an increase in type I MHC and a decrease in type IIb MHC in both FO groups at 10 wk, whereas little change was observed at 1 wk. These data are consistent with hypertrophy and transformation from faster to slower MHC isoforms in chronically overloaded muscles. The additional overload imposed by daily endurance treadmill training employed in this study (1.6 km/day; 10% incline) results in a larger hypertrophic response but appears to have a minimal effect on the MHC adaptations.immunohistochemistry; gel electrophoresis; hypertrophy; fiber type conversion; fiber size FUNCTIONAL OVERLOAD (FO) of the rat plantaris by removal of its major synergists results in hypertrophy and a shift in the contractile, biochemical, and metabolic properties toward those observed in a ''slower'' muscle (26). The extent of these adaptations may be related, in part, to the activity level of the rats after surgery. For example, it appears that the amount of hypertrophy is greater in rats that are exercised on a treadmill than in rats not exercised after FO (13,25), although this is somewhat controversial (3). Thus one of the mechanisms regulating muscle hypertrophy may be the amount and/or type of activity that the overloaded muscle experiences after ablation of its synergists. This contention is supported by the observation that in cats, a relatively sedentary animal, FO of the plantaris has little effect on the mass of the muscle unless the cat is exercised. In addition, the largest amount of hypertrophy was found when the cats were subjected to high-intensity exercise, i.e., sprinting and jumping (26,29).On the basis of gel electrophoresis analyses, FO of the rat plantaris has been shown to result in increases in the percent composition of type I, IIa, and IIx and a decrease in type IIb myosin heavy chains (MHCs) (8,10,19,23,37,38). The effects of exercise on the degree of conversion from fast to slow fibers in FO muscles, however, are e...