Environmental Enrichment Improves Motor Function and Muscle Transcriptome of Aged Mice.
Wei HuangRhiannon BatesXunchang ZouNicholas J QueenXiaokui MoW David ArnoldAlissa RayGregory OwendoffLei CaoPublished in: Advanced biology (2023)
Aging results in the progressive decline of muscle strength. Interventions to maintain muscle strength may mitigate the age-related loss of physical function, thus maximizing health span. The work on environmental enrichment (EE), an experimental paradigm recapitulating aspects of an active lifestyle, has revealed EE-induced metabolic benefits mediated by a brain-fat axis across the lifespan of mice. EE initiated at 18-month of age shows a trend toward an increased mean lifespan. While previous work described EE's influences on the aging dynamics of several central-peripheral processes, its influence on muscle remained understudied. Here, the impact of EE is investigated on motor function, neuromuscular physiology, and the skeletal muscle transcriptome. EE is initiated in 20-month-old mice for a five-month period. EE mice exhibit greater relative lean mass that is associated with improved mobility and hindlimb grip strength. Transcriptomic profiling of muscle tissue reveals an EE-associated enrichment of gene expression within several metabolic pathways related to oxidative phosphorylation and the TCA cycle. Many mitochondrial-related genes-several of which participate in the electron transport chain-are upregulated. Stress-responsive signaling pathways are downregulated because of EE. The results suggest that EE improves motor function-possibly through preservation of mitochondrial function-even late in life.
Keyphrases
- skeletal muscle
- gene expression
- single cell
- high fat diet induced
- rna seq
- insulin resistance
- physical activity
- healthcare
- oxidative stress
- multiple sclerosis
- metabolic syndrome
- adipose tissue
- human health
- white matter
- wild type
- blood brain barrier
- high resolution
- weight loss
- brain injury
- diabetic rats
- subarachnoid hemorrhage
- bone mineral density
- resting state
- postmenopausal women
- cell proliferation
- endoplasmic reticulum stress
- cancer therapy
- epithelial mesenchymal transition
- functional connectivity