The Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms Responsible for The Interaction between Aging, Muscle, and Other Tissues
A special issue of Biomolecules (ISSN 2218-273X). This special issue belongs to the section "Biological Factors".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2021) | Viewed by 12775
Special Issue Editor
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
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Keywords
- skeletal muscle
- aging
- performance
- metabolism
- tissue interaction
- signaling molecule
- physical activity
- exercise
- muscle physiology
- signal transduction
- genetics
- epigenetics
- systems biology
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