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The Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms Responsible for The Interaction between Aging, Muscle, and Other Tissues

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Eija K. Laakkonen

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Guest Editor

Gerontology Research Center and Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences, University of Jyväskylä, 40014 Jyväskylä, Finland
Interests: aging; menopause; physical activity; muscle physiology; metabolic health and metabolic pathways; cellular signaling; microRNAs; molecular genetics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Skeletal muscle is important for locomotion, allowing independence in daily tasks. Aging gradually deteriorates physical performance, but muscle tissue is plastic. If it is regularly challenged, it responds by getting bigger and stronger, but if it is left unused, it gets smaller and weaker. Even the oldest of the old still benefit from exercise training. Master athletes who keep doing sports regularly maintain their muscle performance, comparable to twenty years younger sedentary people. However, even for them, muscle performance deteriorates compared to their own younger selves’ performance. Muscle tissue, which constitutes approximately 30–40% of body mass with decreasing percentage toward old age, also has other important functions aside from keeping us moving. This large mass of tissue is metabolically active, being the major site for total body energy expenditure and contributing to the thermoregulation of the body.

The physiological functions of muscle are orchestrated by molecular regulators, which rapidly respond to the external stimulus provided to the muscle. Such a stimulus can be, for example, physical activity or training, or it can also be a negative stimulus if a person is sedentary or confronts temporal illness causing immobility. Bodily tissues do not work in isolation. Tissues interact with and signal each other to maintain homeostasis. Skeletal muscle is no exception, but instead it is known to be an active endocrine organ, which releases myokines, exerkines, and other molecules to the circulation. With these molecules, muscle interacts and communicates with other tissues of the body and thus greatly contributes to the metabolic and physiological health of an individual.

This Special Issue welcomes investigators to contribute high-quality original research and review articles, which are focused on the effects of aging on skeletal muscle or on how to combat those effects. In this context, submissions regarding the molecular and physiological mechanisms regulating skeletal muscle performance, metabolic, and other functions or submissions taking a systems biological approach to describe muscle crosstalk with other tissues are highly welcomed. Investigators are also encouraged to consider sex or gender differences and to provide their latest achievements using human or experimental study designs. Review articles should provide critical and systematic reviews on published research, reveal gaps in the current knowledge, and forecast future avenues in the field to be considered for inclusion in this Special Issue.

Dr. Eija K. Laakkonen
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biomolecules is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

skeletal muscle
aging
performance
metabolism
tissue interaction
signaling molecule
physical activity
exercise
muscle physiology
signal transduction
genetics
epigenetics
systems biology

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 1433 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Efficacy of Providing the PI3K p110α Inhibitor BYL719 (Alpelisib) to Middle-Aged Mice in Their Diet

by Christopher P. Hedges, Jordi Boix, Jagdish K. Jaiswal, Bhoopika Shetty, Peter R. Shepherd and Troy L. Merry

Biomolecules 2021, 11(2), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom11020150 - 25 Jan 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2757

Abstract

BYL719 (alpelisib) is a small molecule inhibitor of PI3K p110α developed for cancer therapy. Targeted suppression of PI3K has led to lifespan extension in rodents and model organisms. If PI3K inhibitors are to be considered as an aging therapeutic, it is important to understand the potential consequences of long-term exposure, and the most practical way to achieve this is through diet administration. Here, we investigated the pharmacokinetics of BYL719 delivered in diet and the efficacy of BYL719 to suppress insulin signaling when administered in the diet of 8-month-old male and female mice. Compared to oral gavage, diet incorporation resulted in a lower peak plasma BYL719 (3.6 vs. 9.2 μM) concentration but similar half-life (~1.5 h). Consuming BYL719 resulted in decreased insulin signaling in liver and muscle within 72 h, and mice still showed impaired glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity following 6 weeks of access to a diet containing 0.3 g/kg BYL719. However, consuming BYL719 did not affect food intake, body mass, muscle function (rotarod and hang time performance) or cognitive behaviors. This provides evidence that BYL719 has long-term efficacy without major toxicity or side effects, and suggests that administering BYL719 in diet is suitable for studying the effect of pharmacological suppression of PI3K p110α on aging and metabolic function. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms Responsible for The Interaction between Aging, Muscle, and Other Tissues)

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Review

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31 pages, 2324 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceReview

by Jason Tallis, Sharn Shelley, Hans Degens and Cameron Hill

Biomolecules 2021, 11(3), 372; https://doi.org/10.3390/biom11030372 - 02 Mar 2021

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 6271

Abstract

Obesity is a global epidemic and coupled with the unprecedented growth of the world’s older adult population, a growing number of individuals are both old and obese. Whilst both ageing and obesity are associated with an increased prevalence of chronic health conditions and a substantial economic burden, evidence suggests that the coincident effects exacerbate negative health outcomes. A significant contributor to such detrimental effects may be the reduction in the contractile performance of skeletal muscle, given that poor muscle function is related to chronic disease, poor quality of life and all-cause mortality. Whilst the effects of ageing and obesity independently on skeletal muscle function have been investigated, the combined effects are yet to be thoroughly explored. Given the importance of skeletal muscle to whole-body health and physical function, the present study sought to provide a review of the literature to: (1) summarise the effect of obesity on the age-induced reduction in skeletal muscle contractile function; (2) understand whether obesity effects on skeletal muscle are similar in young and old muscle; (3) consider the consequences of these changes to whole-body functional performance; (4) outline important future work along with the potential for targeted intervention strategies to mitigate potential detrimental effects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms Responsible for The Interaction between Aging, Muscle, and Other Tissues)

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