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Autophagic response to exercise training in skeletal muscle with age

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Abstract

Autophagy, a highly conserved quality control mechanism, is essential for the maintenance of cellular homeostasis and for the orchestration of an efficient cellular response to stress. During aging, the efficiency of autophagic degradation declines, and intracellular waste products accumulate. Therefore, in this study, we tested the hypothesis that skeletal muscle from old mice would have decreased autophagosome formation when compared to the muscle from young mice. We also examined whether autophagic regulatory events differ between muscle fiber types and in response to exercise in aged male mice. The extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and gastrocnemius muscles were studied in young and old ICR mice. Exercise was performed by allowing the mice to run on a treadmill with a 5° incline at 16.4 m/min for 40 min/day, 5 days/week for 8 weeks after a 1-week adaptation period. Our results indicated that the levels of microtubule-associated protein 1b light chain 3, a marker of autophagosome formation, were lower in both the EDL and the gastrocnemius muscle of old mice compared to those young mice. To identify the factors related to the changes observed, the expression of autophagy regulatory proteins was examined in the EDL and gastrocnemius muscles. Beclin-1, autophagy-related gene 7 (ATG7), and lysosome-associated membrane protein were found to be lower in the EDL and gastrocnemius muscles of old mice compared to those in the young mice, then Beclin-1, ATG7, and muscle-specific RING finger protein-1 upregulated after regular exercise. Moreover, the muscle weight/body weight was significantly increased only in the gastrocnemius muscle of the old trained mice. These data suggest that autophagy regulatory events are attenuated in old skeletal muscle. However, this effect is upregulated when animals are subjected to exercise training.

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Acknowledgments

Our work is supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea, which is funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2010-0015964) and was also partly supported by the Bio & Medical Technology Development Program of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Korean government (MEST) (2011-0030133).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Biotechnology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea

    Yong An Kim

  2. Department of Biochemistry, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea

    Young Sang Kim

  3. Health and Exercise Science Laboratory, Institute of Sports Science, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanangno, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-742, Korea

    Yong An Kim, Seung Lyul Oh, Hee-Jae Kim & Wook Song

  4. Institute on Aging, Seoul National University, 599 Gwanangno, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 151-742, Korea

    Wook Song

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  1. Yong An Kim
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Correspondence to Wook Song.

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Kim, Y.A., Kim, Y.S., Oh, S.L. et al. Autophagic response to exercise training in skeletal muscle with age. J Physiol Biochem 69, 697–705 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13105-013-0246-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13105-013-0246-7

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