Project description:Skeletal muscle denervation is a characteristic feature of neuromuscular diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and sarcopenia, leading to atrophy, loss of muscle strength, and poor patient outcomes. Myofibers are typically classified into slow oxidative and fast glycolytic types based on their contractile and metabolic properties. Neuromuscular diseases predominantly affect fast myofibers, while slow myofibers are relatively spared. However, the mechanisms underlying the heightened susceptibility of fast myofibers to disease and atrophy remain unclear. To investigate this, we analyzed the transcriptional profiles of innervated and denervated myonuclei. Our findings revealed that the fast muscle gene program and the transcription factor Maf are repressed during denervation. Notably, overexpression of Maf in the skeletal muscles of mice prevented loss of muscle mass and myofiber atrophy caused by denervation. Single-nucleus RNA sequencing and ATAC sequencing demonstrated that Maf overexpression reprogrammed denervated myonuclei by repressing atrophic gene programs and reactivating fast muscle gene expression. Similar repression of fast muscle genes and Maf was observed in muscles from mice and humans with ALS. Consistent with these findings, Maf overexpression in human skeletal muscle cells induced the expression of fast muscle genes while suppressing atrophic gene expression. Our findings highlight a key role for Maf in maintaining muscle mass and demonstrate that its repression contributes to the progression of neuromuscular diseases in both mice and humans. Modulating Maf activity could offer a promising therapeutic strategy to preserve skeletal muscle function during disease, aging, or injury.
Project description:Skeletal muscle denervation is a characteristic feature of neuromuscular diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and sarcopenia, leading to atrophy, loss of muscle strength, and poor patient outcomes. Myofibers are typically classified into slow oxidative and fast glycolytic types based on their contractile and metabolic properties. Neuromuscular diseases predominantly affect fast myofibers, while slow myofibers are relatively spared. However, the mechanisms underlying the heightened susceptibility of fast myofibers to disease and atrophy remain unclear. To investigate this, we analyzed the transcriptional profiles of innervated and denervated myonuclei. Our findings revealed that the fast muscle gene program and the transcription factor Maf are repressed during denervation. Notably, overexpression of Maf in the skeletal muscles of mice prevented loss of muscle mass and myofiber atrophy caused by denervation. Single-nucleus RNA sequencing and ATAC sequencing demonstrated that Maf overexpression reprogrammed denervated myonuclei by repressing atrophic gene programs and reactivating fast muscle gene expression. Similar repression of fast muscle genes and Maf was observed in muscles from mice and humans with ALS. Consistent with these findings, Maf overexpression in human skeletal muscle cells induced the expression of fast muscle genes while suppressing atrophic gene expression. Our findings highlight a key role for Maf in maintaining muscle mass and demonstrate that its repression contributes to the progression of neuromuscular diseases in both mice and humans. Modulating Maf activity could offer a promising therapeutic strategy to preserve skeletal muscle function during disease, aging, or injury.
Project description:Skeletal muscle myofibers, categorized into slow-twitch (type I) and fast-twitch (type II) fibers based on myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoforms, exhibit varying fatigue resistance and metabolic reliance. Type I myofibers are fatigue-resistant with high mitochondrial density and oxidative metabolism, while Type II myofibers fatigue quickly due to glycolytic metabolism and fewer mitochondria. Endurance training induces remodeling of myofiber and mitochondrial, increasing slow-twitch myofibers and enhancing mitochondrial oxidative capacity, improving muscle fitness. In our study, conducted using single-cell techniques, we delved deeply into the transcriptomic differences between type I and type IIb myofibers. In response to endurance training, type I myofibers exhibited heightened signals in essential adaptive responses, such as fatty acid oxidation, mitochondrial biogenesis, and protein synthesis, compared to type IIb myofibers. By analyzing untrained myofibers, we identified specific signaling pathways that explain the differences in their responses to endurance training. These findings provide nuanced insights into the molecular mechanisms governing endurance adaptations in fast and slow-twitch muscles, offering valuable guidance for tailored exercise routines and potential therapeutic interventions.
Project description:Loss of muscle mass and function—a hallmark of skeletal muscle aging—is known as sarcopenia. Moreover, mammalian aging is reportedly driven by loss of epigenetic information. However, the effect of epigenetic alterations on skeletal muscle homeostasis is unknown. In this study, we show that chronic elevation of global DNA methylation results in a myopathy-like phenotype and age-related changes in skeletal muscle. Overexpression of muscle de novo methyltransferase 3a (Dnmt3a) increased central nucleus-positive myofibers, predominantly in fast-twitch myofibers, and shifted muscle fiber type to stress-resistant slow-twitch myofibers, accompanied by increased inflammatory and senescent signatures, decreased mitochondrial OXPHOS complex I protein level, and reduced basal autophagy in skeletal muscle. Chronic Dnmt3a overexpression decreased muscle mass and strength, and impaired tolerance to endurance exercise with age. This age-related decline in endurance exercise capacity was accompanied by an augmented inflammatory signature in a manner that is enhanced with age and promoted muscle atrophy. Network analysis identified Akt1 as a potential hub gene. Dnmt3a expression not only reduced sensitivity to starvation-induced muscle atrophy by suppressing the FoxO-regulated autophagy and ubiquitin–proteasome systems, but also reduced the restorability from starvation-induced muscle atrophy. These data suggest that increased global DNA methylation disrupts skeletal muscle homeostasis, promotes age-related muscle atrophy, and reduces muscle metabolic elasticity.
Project description:Loss of muscle mass and function—a hallmark of skeletal muscle aging—is known as sarcopenia. Moreover, mammalian aging is reportedly driven by loss of epigenetic information. However, the effect of epigenetic alterations on skeletal muscle homeostasis is unknown. In this study, we show that chronic elevation of global DNA methylation results in a myopathy-like phenotype and age-related changes in skeletal muscle. Overexpression of muscle de novo methyltransferase 3a (Dnmt3a) increased central nucleus-positive myofibers, predominantly in fast-twitch myofibers, and shifted muscle fiber type to stress-resistant slow-twitch myofibers, accompanied by upregulation of chemokine and immune system-related genes and reduced basal autophagy in skeletal muscle. Dnmt3a overexpression reduced muscle androgen receptor signaling, decreased muscle mass and strength, and impaired tolerance to endurance exercise with age. Network analysis identified Akt1 as a potential hub gene. Dnmt3a expression reduced sensitivity to starvation-induced muscle atrophy by suppressing the FoxO-regulated autophagy and ubiquitin–proteasome systems. These data suggest that increased global DNA methylation disrupts skeletal muscle homeostasis, promotes age-related decline in muscle function, and reduces muscle plasticity.
Project description:Skeletal muscle is an inherently heterogenous tissue comprised primarily of myofibers, which are historically classified into three distinct fiber types in humans: one “slow” (type 1) and two “fast” (type 2A and type 2X), delineated by the expression of myosin heavy chain isoforms (MYHs). However, whether discrete fiber types exist or whether fiber heterogeneity reflects a continuum remains unclear. Furthermore, whether MYHs are the main classifiers of skeletal muscle fibers has not been examined in an unbiased manner. Through the development and application of novel transcriptomic and proteomic workflows, applied to 1050 and 1038 single muscle fibers from human vastus lateralis, respectively, we show that MYHs are not the principal drivers of skeletal muscle fiber heterogeneity. Instead, ribosomal heterogeneity drives the majority of variance between skeletal muscle fibers in a continual fashion, independent of slow/fast fiber type. Furthermore, whilst slow and fast fiber clusters can be identified, described by their contractile and metabolic profiles, our data challenge the concept that type 2X are phenotypically distinct from other fast fibers at an omics level. Moreover, MYH-based classifications do not adequately describe the phenotype of skeletal muscle fibers in one of the most common genetic muscle diseases, nemaline myopathy. Our data question the currently accepted model of multiple distinct fiber types based on the expression of MYHs in humans and identifies ribosomal heterogeneity as a major driver of skeletal muscle fiber heterogeneity, opening a new field of research within skeletal muscle physiology.
Project description:Background: skeletal muscle is a complex, versatile tissue composed of a variety of functionally diverse fiber types. Although the biochemical, structural and functional properties of myofibers have been the subject of intense investigation for the last decades, understanding molecular processes regulating fiber type diversity is still complicated by the heterogeneity of cell types present in the whole muscle organ. Methodology/Principal Findings: we have produced a first catalogue of genes expressed in mouse slow-oxidative (type 1) and fast-glycolytic (type 2B) fibers through transcriptome analysis at the single fiber level (microgenomics). Individual fibers were obtained from murine soleus and EDL muscles and initially classified by myosin heavy chain isoform content. Gene expression profiling on high density DNA oligonucleotide microarrays showed that both qualitative and quantitative improvements were achieved, compared to results with standard muscle homogenate. First, myofiber profiles were virtually free from non-muscle transcriptional activity. Second, thousands of muscle-specific genes were identified, leading to a better definition of gene signatures in the two fiber types as well as the detection of metabolic and signaling pathways that are differentially activated in specific fiber types. Several regulatory proteins showed preferential expression in slow myofibers. Discriminant analysis revealed novel genes that could be useful for fiber type functional classification. Conclusions/Significance: as gene expression analyses at the single fiber level significantly increased the resolution power, this innovative approach would allow a better understanding of the adaptive transcriptomic transitions occurring in myofibers under physiological and pathological conditions.
Project description:Background: Skeletal muscle myocytes have evolved into slow and fast-twitch types. These types are functionally distinct as a result of differential gene and protein expression. However, an understanding of the complexity of gene and protein variation between myofibers is unknown. Methods: We performed deep, whole cell, single cell RNA-seq on intact and fragments of skeletal myocytes from the mouse flexor digitorum brevis muscle. We compared the genomic expression data of 171 of these cells with two human proteomic datasets. The first was a spatial proteomics survey of mosaic patterns of protein expression utilizing the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) and the HPASubC tool. The second was a mass-spectrometry (MS) derived proteomic dataset of single human muscle fibers. Immunohistochemistry and RNA-ISH were used to understand variable expression. Results: scRNA-seq identified three distinct clusters of myocytes (a slow/fast 2A cluster and two fast 2X clusters). Utilizing 1,605 mosaic patterned proteins from visual proteomics, and 596 differentially expressed proteins by MS methods, we explore this fast 2X division. Only 36 genes/proteins were mosaic across all three studies, of which nine are newly described as variable between fast/slow twitch myofibers. An additional 414 genes/proteins were identified by two methods. Immunohistochemistry and RNA-ISH generally validated variable expression across methods presumably due to species-related differences. Conclusions: In this first integrated proteogenomic analysis of mature skeletal muscle myocytes we validate the main fiber types and greatly expand the known repertoire of twitch-type specific genes/proteins. We also demonstrate the importance of integrating genomic and proteomic datasets.
Project description:Muscle disuse results in complex signaling alterations followed by structural and functional changes, such as atrophy, force decrease and slow-to-fast fiber-type shift. Little is known about human skeletal muscle signaling alterations under long-term muscle disuse. In this study, we describe the effects of 21-day dry immersion on human postural soleus muscle. We performed both transcriptomic analysis and Western blots to describe the states of the key signaling pathways regulating soleus muscle fiber size, fiber-type, and metabolism. 21-day dry immersion resulted in both slow-type and fast-type myofibers atrophy, downregulation of rRNA content, and mTOR signaling. 21-day dry immersion also leads to slow-to-fast fiber-type and gene expression shift, upregulation of p-eEF2, p-CaMKII, p-ACC content and downregulation of NFATc1 nuclear content. It also caused massive gene expression alterations associated with calcium signaling, cytoskeletal parameters, and downregulated mitochondrial signaling (including fusion, fission, and marker of mitochondrial density).
Project description:SILAC based protein correlation profiling using size exclusion of protein complexes derived from Mus musculus tissues (Heart, Liver, Lung, Kidney, Skeletal Muscle, Thymus)