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Research Paper|Volume 10, Issue 11|pp 3327—3352

Oxidative muscles have better mitochondrial homeostasis than glycolytic muscles throughout life and maintain mitochondrial function during aging

Annunziata N. Crupi1,2, Jordan S. Nunnelee1,2, David J. Taylor2,3, Amandine Thomas2,3, Jean-Philippe Vit2,4, Celine E. Riera1,2,5, Roberta A. Gottlieb2,3, Helen S. Goodridge1,2
  • 1Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA
  • 2Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA
  • 3Smidt Heart Institute and Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA
  • 4Biobehavioral Research Core, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA
  • 5Center for Neural Science and Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA

* * Equal contribution

Received: July 30, 2018Accepted: November 5, 2018Published: November 18, 2018
https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.101643

Copyright: © 2018 Crupi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract

Preservation of mitochondrial function, which is dependent on mitochondrial homeostasis (biogenesis, dynamics, disposal/recycling), is critical for maintenance of skeletal muscle function. Skeletal muscle performance declines upon aging (sarcopenia) and is accompanied by decreased mitochondrial function in fast-glycolytic muscles. Oxidative metabolism promotes mitochondrial homeostasis, so we investigated whether mitochondrial function is preserved in oxidative muscles. We compared tibialis anterior (predominantly glycolytic) and soleus (oxidative) muscles from young (3 mo) and old (28-29 mo) C57BL/6J mice. Throughout life, the soleus remained more oxidative than the tibialis anterior and expressed higher levels of markers of mitochondrial biogenesis, fission/fusion and autophagy. The respiratory capacity of mitochondria isolated from the tibialis anterior, but not the soleus, declined upon aging. The soleus and tibialis anterior exhibited similar aging-associated changes in mitochondrial biogenesis, fission/fusion, disposal and autophagy marker expression, but opposite changes in fiber composition: the most oxidative fibers declined in the tibialis anterior, while the more glycolytic fibers declined in the soleus. In conclusion, oxidative muscles are protected from mitochondrial aging, probably due to better mitochondrial homeostasis ab initio and aging-associated changes in fiber composition. Exercise training aimed at enriching oxidative fibers may be valuable in preventing mitochondria-related aging and its contribution to sarcopenia.