We studied a family with a myopathic form of complex I deficiency with regard to the clinical symptoms, usefulness of the exercise tolerance test with an ergometer for screening of mitochondrial abnormalities, pathological findings in biopsied muscles and genetics. In this family, none of the members had disorders of the central nervous system, such as convulsions, mental deterioration or stroke-like episodes. In the two affected generations, three mothers and three children had mitochondrial abnormalities. Two children were diagnosed as having complex I deficiency. One of them, an 8-year-old girl with normal psychomotor development during infancy, began to experience easy fatigability at about 3 years of age. At the age of 5 years, she experienced respiratory distress and became unconscious. Thereafter, she had similar episodic respiratory problems with lactic acidosis. Ragged-red fibers and respiratory chain enzyme defects were detected in the biopsied muscle. Another child, a 15-year-old boy with easy fatigability but no muscle weakness, had normal respiratory chain enzyme activities and a normal oxysogram: oxygen consumption showed a normal responses when malate and pyruvate were added as substrates for the isolated mitochondria. His muscle pathology revealed rare ragged-red fibers and abnormal subsarcolemmal mitochondrial aggregation. An investigation with an ergometer showed elevated serum lactate and pyruvate levels. Only one mother had muscle weakness and hyper-lactic acidemia. The other two mothers had no muscle symptoms, but abnormal results were obtained with the ergometer.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)