The skeletal muscle lipidomic profile is unaltered by swim training in mice (#215)
Intramyocellular lipid accumulation (such as triglycerides (TAG) and diacylglycerols (DAG) has been associated with skeletal muscle insulin resistance1, 2. However, a paradox exists considering increased skeletal muscle TAG3 and DAG4 levels are also found in highly insulin-sensitive exercise-trained humans. Whether this paradox exists or is induced after an exercise training period in rodents is unclear. To investigate this we set out to examine the lipodomic profile of mice after undergoing an intensive training regime. Mice were exercised by swim training twice daily, every day for 28 days. Mice swam for 10 minutes per session on Day 1, 20 minutes per session on Day 2 until 90 minute sessions were reached on Day 9 and maintained until day 28. 15 swimming-trained mice were compared to 10 non-swimming controls. To determine the success of the training protocol the oxidative capacity of skeletal muscle was assessed by measuring the maximal activities of two important mitochondrial enzymes, citrate synthase (CS) and β-hydroxyacyl-CoA-dehydrogenase (β-HAD). The activities of these enzymes were significantly higher with training in gastrocnemius muscle (P = <0.01). Consequently, we performed lipodomic analysis by mass spectrometry in the gastrocnemius tissue. Total TAG levels tended to be higher in the swim-trained mice but did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.07). In regards to specific TAG molecular species 16:0,18:0,18:1 and 14:1,18:0,18:2 were significantly elevated in the trained group (P= <0.05). Total DAG, Caramide, phosphatidylcholine (PC), cholesterol ester (CE), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), sphingomyelin, cardiolipins and the PC/PE ratio were not different between groups. These data suggest that while certain TAG species are increased in skeletal muscle of trained rodents, exercise training has no affect on lipid species that have been associated with insulin resistance such as DAG and ceramide.
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