Loss of α-actinin-3 confers protection from eccentric contraction damage in fast-twitch EDL muscles from aged mdx dystrophic mice by reducing pathological fibre branching

The common null polymorphism (R577X) in the ACTN3 gene is present in over 1.5 billion people worldwide and results in the absence of the protein α-actinin-3 from the Z-discs of fast-twitch skeletal muscle fibres. We have previously reported that this polymorphism is a modifier of dystrophin-deficient Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. To investigate the mechanism underlying this, we use a double knockout (dk)Actn3KO/mdx (dKO) mouse model, which lacks both dystrophin and sarcomere α-actinin-3. We used dKO mice and mdx dystrophic mice at 12 months (aged) to investigate the correlation between morphological changes to the fast-twitch dKO EDL and the reduction in force deficit produced by an in vitro eccentric contraction protocol. In the aged dKO mouse, we found a marked reduction in fibre branching complexity that correlated with protection from eccentric contraction induced force deficit. Complex branches in the aged dKO EDL fibres (28%) were substantially reduced compared to aged mdx EDL fibres (68%), and this correlates with a graded force loss over three eccentric contractions for dKO muscles (~36% after first contraction, ~66% overall) compared to an abrupt drop in mdx upon the first eccentric contraction (~75% after first contraction, ~89% after three contractions). In dKO, protection from eccentric contraction damage was linked with a doubling of SERCA1 pump density the EDL. We propose that the increased oxidative metabolism of fast-twitch glycolytic fibres characteristic of the null polymorphism (R577X) and increase in SR Ca2+ pump proteins reduces muscle fibre branching and decreases susceptibility to eccentric injury in the dystrophinopathies

Six weeks of N-acetylcysteine antioxidant in drinking water decreases pathological fiber branching in MDX mouse dystrophic fast-twitch skeletal muscle

Introduction: It has been proposed that an increased susceptivity to oxidative stress caused by the absence of the protein dystrophin from the inner surface of the sarcolemma is a trigger of skeletal muscle necrosis in the destructive dystrophin deficient muscular dystrophies. Here we use the mdx mouse model of human Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy to test the hypothesis that adding the antioxidant NAC at 2% to drinking water for six weeks will treat the inflammatory phase of the dystrophic process and reduce pathological muscle fiber branching and splitting resulting in a reduction of mass in mdx fast-twitch EDL muscles. Methods: Animal weight and water intake was recorded during the six weeks when 2% NAC was added to the drinking water. Post NAC treatment animals were euthanised and the EDL muscles dissected out and placed in an organ bath where the muscle was attached to a force transducer to measure contractile properties and susceptibility to force loss from eccentric contractions. After the contractile measurements had been made the EDL muscle was blotted and weighed. In order to assess the degree of pathological fiber branching mdx EDL muscles were treated with collagenase to release single fibers. For counting and morphological analysis single EDL mdx skeletal muscle fibers were viewed under high magnification on an inverted microscope. Results: During the six-week treatment phase NAC reduced body weight gain in three- to nine-week-old mdx and littermate control mice without effecting fluid intake. NAC treatment also significantly reduced the mdx EDL muscle mass and abnormal fiber branching and splitting. Discussion: We propose chronic NAC treatment reduces the inflammatory response and degenerative cycles in the mdx dystrophic EDL muscles resulting in a reduction in the number of complexed branched fibers reported to be responsible for the dystrophic EDL muscle hypertrophy

Absence of the Z-disc protein α-actinin-3 impairs the mechanical stability of Actn3KO mouse fast-twitch muscle fibres without altering their contractile properties or twitch kinetics

Background: A common polymorphism (R577X) in the ACTN3 gene results in the complete absence of the Z-disc protein α-actinin-3 from fast-twitch muscle fibres in ~ 16% of the world’s population. This single gene polymorphism has been subject to strong positive selection pressure during recent human evolution. Previously, using an Actn3KO mouse model, we have shown in fast-twitch muscles, eccentric contractions at L0 + 20% stretch did not cause eccentric damage. In contrast, L0 + 30% stretch produced a significant ~ 40% deficit in maximum force; here, we use isolated single fast-twitch skeletal muscle fibres from the Actn3KO mouse to investigate the mechanism underlying this. Methods: Single fast-twitch fibres are separated from the intact muscle by a collagenase digest procedure. We use label-free second harmonic generation (SHG) imaging, ultra-fast video microscopy and skinned fibre measurements from our MyoRobot automated biomechatronics system to study the morphology, visco-elasticity, force production and mechanical strength of single fibres from the Actn3KO mouse. Data are presented as means ± SD and tested for significance using ANOVA. Results: We show that the absence of α-actinin-3 does not affect the visco-elastic properties or myofibrillar force production. Eccentric contractions demonstrated that chemically skinned Actn3KO fibres are mechanically weaker being prone to breakage when eccentrically stretched. Furthermore, SHG images reveal disruptions in the myofibrillar alignment of Actn3KO fast-twitch fibres with an increase in Y-shaped myofibrillar branching. Conclusions: The absence of α-actinin-3 from the Z-disc in fast-twitch fibres disrupts the organisation of the myofibrillar proteins, leading to structural weakness. This provides a mechanistic explanation for our earlier findings that in vitro intact Actn3KO fast-twitch muscles are significantly damaged by L0 + 30%, but not L0 + 20%, eccentric contraction strains. Our study also provides a possible mechanistic explanation as to why α-actinin-3-deficient humans have been reported to have a faster decline in muscle function with increasing age, that is, as sarcopenia reduces muscle mass and force output, the eccentric stress on the remaining functional α-actinin-3 deficient fibres will be increased, resulting in fibre breakages

Minocycline treatment reduces mass and force output from fast-twitch mouse muscles and inhibits myosin production in C2C12 myotubes

Minocycline, a tetracycline-class of antibiotic, has been tested with mixed effectiveness on neuromuscular disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, autoimmune neuritis and muscular dystrophy. The independent effect of minocycline on skeletal muscle force production and signalling remain poorly understood. Our aim here is to investigate the effects of minocycline on muscle mass, force production, myosin heavy chain abundance and protein synthesis. Mice were injected with minocycline (40 mg/kg i.p.) daily for 5 days and sacrificed at day six. Fast-twitch EDL, TA muscles and slow-twitch soleus muscles were dissected out, the TA muscle was snap-frozen and the remaining muscles were attached to force transducer whilst maintained in an organ bath. In C2C12 myotubes, minocycline was applied to the media at a final concentration of 10 µg/mL for 48 h. In minocycline treated mice absolute maximal force was lower in fast-twitch EDL while in slow-twitch soleus there was an increase in the time to peak and relaxation of the twitch. There was no effect of minocycline treatment on the other contractile parameters measured in isolated fast- and slow-twitch muscles. In C2C12 cultured cells, minocycline treatment significantly reduced both myosin heavy chain content and protein synthesis without visible changes to myotube morphology. In the TA muscle there was no significant changes in myosin heavy chain content. These results indicate that high dose minocycline treatment can cause a reduction in maximal isometric force production and mass in fast-twitch EDL and impair protein synthesis during myogenesis in C2C12 cultured cells. These findings have important implications for future studies investigating the efficacy of minocycline treatment in neuromuscular or other muscle-atrophy inducing conditions

Antioxidant therapy in a mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy : some promising results but with a weighty caveat

Editorial perspective: Taking into account the positive findings of earlier studies and the results presented in this issue of The Journal of Physiology by Pinninger and colleagues, it is evident that oral administration of N-acetylcysteine warrants further research as a potential therapy for DMD with the important caveat that close attention must be paid to any N-acetylcysteine-associated weight loss

Branched fibres in old dystrophic mdx muscle are associated with mechanical weakening of the sarcolemma, abnormal Ca2+ transients and a breakdown of Ca2+ homeostasis during fatigue

In the dystrophinopathies, skeletal muscle fibres undergo cycles of degeneration and regeneration, with regenerated fibres displaying a branched morphology. This study tests the hypothesis that regenerated branched fibres are mechanically weakened by the presence of branches and are damaged by contractions which do not affect unbranched dystrophin-negative fibres. Experiments were carried out on single fast-twitch fibres and whole muscle from the dystrophin-negative mdx mouse. Fura-2 was ionophoresed into fibres to measure intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i). Single branched mdx fibres have abnormal Ca2+ kinetics, with the [Ca2+]i transient at the peak of the twitch depressed, are damaged by fatiguing activation, resulting in a breakdown of Ca2+ homeostasis, and break at branch points when submaximally activated in skinned fibre experiments. When old intact isolated mdx muscles, with >90% branched fibres, are eccentrically activatedwith amoderate eccentric protocol there is a 40+_8% reduction in maximal force. Isolated single fibres from these muscles show areas of damage at fibre branch points. This same eccentric protocol causes no force loss in either littermate control muscles or mdx muscles with<10% branched fibres. I present a two-stage hypothesis formuscle damage in the dystrophinopathies, as follows: stage 1, the absence of dystrophin disrupts ion channel function, causing an activation of necrotizing Ca2+-activated proteases, which results in regenerated branched fibres; and stage 2, branched fibres are mechanically damaged during contraction. These results may have implications when considering therapies for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In particular, any therapy aimed at rescuing the defective gene will presumably have to do so before the number of branched fibres has increased to a level where the muscle is mechanically compromised

Does skeletal muscle fiber branching play a role in the inability of old EDL dystrophic muscle to resist large passive stretches?

Letter to the edito

Old men still have the skeletal muscle contractile function to get up and go even after they have had their leg in a cast

In this issue of The Journal Physiology Hvid et al. (2011) report some interesting experimental data which suggest, that at least for males in their 60s which nowadays can be classed as ‘young ageing’, neither age nor immobilisation are as deleterious to the contractile properties of muscle fibres as might have been expected

Quantitative ratiometric Ca2+ imaging to assess cell viability

Viability of cells is strongly related to their Ca2+ homeostasis. Ca2+ signal fluctuations can be on a slow time scale, e.g., in non-excitable cells, but also in the range of tens of milliseconds for excitable cells, such as nerve and muscle. Muscle fibers respond to electrical stimulation with Ca2+ transients that exceed their resting basal level about 100 times. Fluorescent Ca2+ dyes have become an indispensable means to monitor Ca2+ fluctuations in living cells online. Fluorescence intensity of such “environmental dyes” relies on a buffer-ligand interaction which is not only governed by laws of mass action but also by binding and unbinding kinetics that have to be considered for proper Ca2+ kinetics and amplitude validation. The concept of Ca2+ dyes including the different approaches using ratiometric and non-ratiometric dyes, the way to correctly choose dyes according to their low-/high-affinity properties and kinetics as well as staining techniques, and in situ calibration are reviewed and explained. We provide detailed protocols to apply ratiometric Fura-2 imaging of resting Ca2+ and Ca2+ fluctuations during field-stimulation in single isolated skeletal muscle cells and how to translate fluorescence intensities into absolute Ca2+ concentrations using appropriate calibration techniques

The role of branched fibres in the pathogenesis of Duchenne muscular dystrophy

Branched fibres are a well-documented phenomenon of regenerating skeletal muscle. They are found in the muscles of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a severe condition of progressive muscle wasting caused by an absence of the sarcolemmal protein dystrophin, and in the muscles of themdxmouse, an animal model of DMD. However, only a handful of studies have investigated how the physiological properties of these morphologically deformed fibres differ from those of normal fibres. These studies have found an association between the extent of fibre branching inmdxmuscles and the susceptibility of these muscles to damage from eccentric contractions. They have also found that branchedmdxmuscle fibres cannot sustain maximal contractions in buffered Ca2+ solutions, that branch points are sites of increased mechanical stress and that myofibrillar stucture is greatly disturbed at branch points. These findings have important implications for understanding the function of dystrophin. It is commonly thought that the role of dystrophin is mechanical stabilization of the sarcolemma, as numerous studies have shown that eccentric contractions damagemdxmuscle more than normal muscle. However, the finding that branchedmdxfibres are mechanically weakened raises the question, is it the lack of dystrophin or is it the fibre branching that leads to the vulnerability ofmdxmuscle to contractile damage? The importance of this question to our understanding of the function of dystrophin warrants further research into the physiological properties of branched fibres and how they differ from morphologically normal fibres