Acute daily psychological stress causes increased atrophic gene expression and myostatin-dependent muscle atrophy
- 1 September 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Physiological Society in American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology
- Vol. 299 (3), R889-R898
- https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00296.2010
Abstract
Psychological stress is known to attenuate body size and lean body mass. We tested the effects of 1, 3, or 7 days of two different models of psychological stress, 1 h of daily restraint stress (RS) or daily cage-switching stress (CS), on skeletal muscle size and atrophy-associated gene expression in mice. Thymus weights decreased in both RS and CS mice compared with unstressed controls, suggesting that both models activated the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Body mass was significantly decreased at all time points for both models of stress but was greater for RS than CS. Mass of the tibialis anterior (TA) and soleus (SOL) muscles was significantly decreased after 3 and 7 days of RS, but CS only significantly decreased SOL mass after 7 days. TA mRNA levels of the atrophy-associated genes myostatin (MSTN), atrogin-1, and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitory subunit p85α were all significantly increased relative to unstressed mice after 1 and 3 days of RS, and expression of MSTN and p85α mRNA remained elevated after 7 days of RS. Expression of muscle ring finger 1 was increased after 1 day of RS but returned to baseline at 3 and 7 days of RS. MSTN, atrogin-1, and p85α mRNA levels also significantly increased after 1 and 3 days of CS but atrogen-1 mRNA levels had resolved back to normal levels by 3 days and p85α with 7 days of CS. p21CIP mRNA levels were significantly decreased by 3 days of CS or RS. Finally, body mass was minimally affected, and muscle mass was completely unaffected by 3 days of RS in mice null for the MSTN gene, and MSTN inactivation attenuated the increase in atrogin-1 mRNA levels with 4 days of RS compared with wild-type mice. Together these data suggest that acute daily psychological stress induces atrophic gene expression and loss of muscle mass that appears to be MSTN dependent.Keywords
This publication has 54 references indexed in Scilit:
- Myostatin Gene Deletion Prevents Glucocorticoid-Induced Muscle AtrophyEndocrinology, 2007
- Chronic social stress in a changing dietary environmentPhysiology & Behavior, 2006
- Reduced stress- and cold-induced increase in energy expenditure in interleukin-6-deficient miceAmerican Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 2006
- Myostatin induces cachexia by activating the ubiquitin proteolytic system through an NF‐κB‐independent, FoxO1‐dependent mechanismJournal of Cellular Physiology, 2006
- Work stress, weight gain and weight loss: evidence for bidirectional effects of job strain on body mass index in the Whitehall II studyInternational Journal of Obesity, 2006
- Sympathetic and angiotensin-dependent hypertension during cage-switch stress in miceAmerican Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 2004
- Effect of glucocorticoïd receptor ligands on myosin heavy chains expression in rat skeletal muscles during controllable stressJournal of Muscle Research and Cell Motility, 2004
- Prolonged underfeeding of sheep increases myostatin and myogenic regulatory factor Myf-5 in skeletal muscle while IGF-I and myogenin are repressedJournal of Endocrinology, 2003
- Skeletal muscle myostatin mRNA expression is fiber-type specific and increases during hindlimb unloadingAmerican Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 1999
- Effect of repeated stress on body weight and body composition of rats fed low- and high-fat diets.American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 1998