Short-term, high-fat diet accelerates disuse atrophy and protein degradation in a muscle-specific manner in mice

Background: A short-term high-fat diet impairs mitochondrial function and the ability of skeletal muscle to respond to growth stimuli, but it is unknown whether such a diet alters the ability to respond to atrophy signals. The purpose of this study was to determine whether rapid weigh gain induced by a high-fat (HF) diet accelerates denervation-induced muscle atrophy. Methods: Adult, male mice (C57BL/6) were fed a control or HF (60 % calories as fat) diet for 3 weeks (3wHF). Sciatic nerve was sectioned unilaterally for the final 5 or 14 days of the diet. Soleus and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles were removed and incubated in vitro to determine rates of protein degradation and subsequently homogenized for determination of protein levels of LC3, ubiquitination, myosin heavy chain (MHC) distribution, and mitochondrial subunits. Results: When mice were fed the 3wHF diet, whole-body fat mass more than doubled, but basal (innervated) muscle weights, rates of protein degradation, LC3 content, mitochondrial protein content, and myosin isoform distribution were not significantly different than with the control diet in either soleus or EDL. However in the 14 day denervated soleus, the 3wHF diet significantly augmented loss of mass, proteolysis rate, amount of the autophagosome marker LC3 II, and the amount of overall ubiquitination as compared to the control fed mice. On the contrary, the 3wHF diet had no significant effect in the EDL on amount of mass loss, proteolysis rate, LC3 levels, or ubiquitination. Fourteen days denervation also induced a loss of mitochondrial proteins in the soleus but not the EDL, regardless of the diet. Conclusions: Taken together, a short-term, high-fat diet augments denervation muscle atrophy by induction of protein degradation in the mitochondria-rich soleus but not in the glycolytic EDL. These findings suggest that the denervation-induced loss of mitochondria and HF diet-induced impairment of mitochondrial function may combine to promote skeletal muscle atrophy

Supporting Key Aspects of Practice in Making Mathematics Explicit in Science Lessons

STEM integration has often been recommended as a way to support students to develop 21st Century skills needed to function in the complex modern world. In order for students to experience integration, however, their teachers need support in designing, developing and implementing integrated curricular instruction, which is often at odds with a very subject-focused educational system. This paper reports on the second year of a research study conducted with five secondary science and mathematics teachers, concerned with supporting them to teach explicitly the mathematics components within science lessons, mediated via technology. It outlines how the teachers collaborated with the support of science and mathematics education researchers within a community of practice, named a Teaching and Learning Network (TLN). The network was intended to promote and enhance teacher capacity for the interdisciplinary teaching of mathematics in science in the face of various contextual and other obstacles observed in the first year of the study. This study found that the opportunity to work in a Teaching and Learning Network supported the teachers’ ownership of the design of the integrated learning unit, enhanced their content knowledge of the mathematics, their use of the data logging technology and their understanding of an inquiry based pedagogical approach. Participation in the TLN provided teachers with the mechanism to cross the boundaries of the subject disciplines, and thereby promoted change in their attitudes, professional knowledge and to some extent, practice

High-Fat Diet Induced Obesity Increases Serum Myostatin, but Does Not Accelerate Skeletal Muscle Atrophy

Myostatin is a potent negative regulator of muscle mass, i.e. high levels of myostatin induce loss of muscle. Surprisingly, severely obese humans and obese mice have elevated levels of serum myostatin, but the role of myostatin in controlling muscle mass during obesity is largely unknown. The aim of this study is to determine if obesity induced by a high-fat diet will decrease muscle mass or sensitize muscles to other factors that induce muscle atrophy. Thirty male C57BL/6 mice were divided into three groups\; 12-wk control diet (CD), 9-wk control diet then 3-wk high-fat diet (3wHF), and 12-wk high-fat diet (12wHF). At 10 weeks with each diet, the left sciatic nerve was cut (surgical denervation, a model of nerve damage), and contralateral sham operated. At 12 weeks, EDL, soleus, tibialis anterior (TA), plantaris, and gastrocnemius muscles were excised and weighed\; body composition was measured by MRI\; and serum myostatin was measured by ELISA. The EDL and soleus muscles were incubated and rates of protein degradation were determined by the net amount of tyrosine released. The TA muscles were cross-sectioned and mean fiber area estimated. As expected, the 12wHF resulted in a profound increase in fat mass (785%), with less in 3wHF (541%) and CD (216%). The concentration of myostatin in serum was between 1.5 to 2 fold higher (p [less than or equal to] 0.05) in the 12wHF group (705 pg/ml ± 79) than the 3wHF (420 pg/ml ± 36) and CD (316 pg/ml ± 18). In spite of this, there were no significant differences in muscle mass of the innervated muscles between diets. The percent atrophy due to denervation ranged from 15 to 39%, depending on the muscle, but there were no significant differences among diet groups, with the exception of greater atrophy (p [less than or equal to] 0.05) of the soleus muscle in the 3wHF group (26% versus 16% for CD and 15% for 12wHF). The rate of protein degradation was ~55 [eta]mol/g/hr for the innervated EDL muscles and ~75 [eta]mol/g/hr for the innervated soleus muscles. No significant differences existed between diet groups for either muscle. There were no significant differences between the diet groups for the rate of protein degradation of the denervated EDL muscles, but the rate of protein degradation for the denervated soleus muscle of the 3wkHF group was 30% faster than the CD and 12wkHF groups in accordance with the muscle mass findings. No significant differences in mean fiber area were found between diet groups among the innervated or denervated TA muscles. In summary, muscles of mice on a 12-week high-fat diet are exposed to higher myostatin but have the same mass and atrophy at the same rate as mice fed a control diet. This demonstrates that obesity may cause muscles to become resistant to the catabolic actions of myostatin