Building‐up fit muscles for the future

Abstract

Special issue -In Utero and Early Life Programming of Aging and Disease'.Skeletal muscle (SM) adaptations to physical exercise (PE) have been extensively studied due, not only to the relevance of its in situ plasticity, but also to the SM endocrine-like effects in noncontractile tissues, such as brain, liver or adipocytes.Regular PE has been considered a pleiotropic nonpharmacological strategy to prevent and counteract the deleterious consequences of several metabolic, cardiovascular, oncological and neurodegenerative disorders. Additionally, PE performed by parents seems to have a direct impact in the offspring through the transgenerational programming of different tissues, such as SM. In fact, SM offspring programming mechanisms seems to be orchestrated, at least in part, by epigenetic machinery conditioning transcriptional or post-transcriptional processes. Ultimately, PE performed in the early in life is also a critical window of opportunity to positively modulate the juvenile and adult phenotype. Parental PE has a positive impact in several healthrelated offspring outcomes, such as SM metabolism, differentiation, morphology and ultimately in offspring exercise volition and endurance. Also, early-life PE counteracts conceptional-related adverse effects and induces long-lasting healthy benefits throughout adulthood. Additionally, epigenetics mechanisms seem to play a key role in the PE-induced SM adaptations. Despite the undoubtedly positive role of parental and early-life PE on SM phenotype, a strong research effort is still needed to better understand the mechanisms that positively regulate PE-induced SM programming.

Metabolic Remodeling in Skeletal Muscle Atrophy as a Therapeutic Target

“…Indeed, maternal lowprotein diet [251,252] or high-fat diet (HFD) [253,254] consumption affect muscle metabolism and insulin sensitivity, predisposing the offspring to metabolic dysfunction later in life [255][256][257][258], in part by epigenetically altering skeletal muscle gene expression [259][260][261]. Moreover, maternal HFD correlates with compromised skeletal muscle development in the offspring, characterized by atrophy [253,262,263] and reduced performance [264,265], in part due to mitochondrial defects [263,266,267]. Even paternal nutrient support influences the metabolic state and the predisposition to metabolic disease [268,269], by epigenetic reprogramming of the sperm and offspring metabolic genes [270].…”

“…Recently, the beneficial effects of exercise have been shown to be transmitted to future generations, since parental physical exercise positively affects body metabolism, skeletal muscle structure, and performance of the offspring [263,273,284]. Studies from human and animal models demonstrated that maternal exercise performed during pregnancy increases muscle motility, reduces predisposition to obesity, and improves glucose homeostasis in the offspring [273,[285][286][287][288].…”

Epigenetic impact of the parents' physical activity on the health of their children

“…It has been proven that skeletal muscle is a programmable tissue and can "remember" mechanical and metabolic stimuli in the early stages of life through epigenetic mechanisms, which affects its function throughout lifetime [46,47]. Epigenetic memory effects have recently been illustrated for key genes involved in mitochondrial biogenesis, including the most comprehensive transcription coactivator controlling energy metabolismi.e.…”

General review of contents by Peter Nathanielsz

“…Beleza et al 9 address the topic 'Buildingup fit muscles for the future'. The authors emphasize that regular physical exercise is beneficial to improvement of health in multiple chronic conditions.…”