Research Paper|Volume 5, Issue 11|pp 850—864

Relationships between human vitality and mitochondrial respiratory parameters, reactive oxygen species production and dNTP levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells

Scott Maynard^1,², Guido Keijzers^1,^2,³, Martin Gram^1,⁴, Claus Desler^1,², Laila Bendix^3,⁵, Esben Budtz-Jørgensen⁵, Drude Molbo^1,⁵, Deborah L. Croteau⁶, Merete Osler^3,⁷, Tinna Stevnsner^3,⁸, Lene Juel Rasmussen^1,², Flemming Dela^1,⁴, Kirsten Avlund^1,^3,⁵, Vilhelm A. Bohr⁶

¹Center for Healthy Aging at the University of Copenhagen, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark
²Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark
³Danish Aging Research Center, Universities of Aarhus, Southern Denmark and Copenhagen, Denmark
⁴Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, 2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark
⁵Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, 1014 Copenhagen K, Denmark
⁶Laboratory of Molecular Gerontology, National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health, Baltimore, MD 21224-6825, USA
⁷Research Centre for prevention and Health, Glostrup University Hospital, 2600 Glostrup, Denmark
⁸Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, University of Aarhus, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark

* * Equal contribution

Received: September 25, 2013Accepted: November 20, 2013Published: November 30, 2013

https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.100618

Copyright: © 2013 Maynard et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Low vitality (a component of fatigue) in middle-aged and older adults is an important complaint often identified as a symptom of a disease state or side effect of a treatment. No studies to date have investigated the potential link between dysfunctional mitochondrial ATP production and low vitality. Therefore, we measured a number of cellular parameters related to mitochondrial activity in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) isolated from middle-aged men, and tested for association with vitality. These parameters estimate mitochondrial respiration, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, and deoxyribonucleotide (dNTP) balance in PBMCs. The population was drawn from the Metropolit cohort of men born in 1953. Vitality level was estimated from the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form 36 (SF-36) vitality scale. We found that vitality score had no association with any of the mitochondrial respiration parameters. However, vitality score was inversely associated with cellular ROS production and cellular deoxythymidine triphosphate (dTTP) levels and positively associated with deoxycytidine triphosphate (dCTP) levels. We conclude that self-reported persistent low vitality is not associated with specific aspects of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation capacity in PBMCs, but may have other underlying cellular dysfunctions that contribute to dNTP imbalance and altered ROS production.