People with obesity exhibit losses in muscle proteostasis that are partly improved by exercise training

Abstract

This pilot experiment examines if a loss in muscle proteostasis occurs in people with obesity and whether endurance exercise positively influences either the abundance profile or turnover rate of proteins in this population. Men with (n = 3) or without (n = 4) obesity were recruited and underwent a 14‐d measurement protocol of daily deuterium oxide (D2O) consumption and serial biopsies of vastus lateralis muscle. Men with obesity then completed 10‐weeks of high‐intensity interval training (HIIT), encompassing 3 sessions per week of cycle ergometer exercise with 1 min intervals at 100% maximum aerobic power interspersed by 1 min recovery periods. The number of intervals per session progressed from 4 to 8, and during weeks 8–10 the 14‐d measurement protocol was repeated. Proteomic analysis detected 352 differences (p < 0.05, false discovery rate < 5%) in protein abundance and 19 (p < 0.05) differences in protein turnover, including components of the ubiquitin‐proteasome system. HIIT altered the abundance of 53 proteins and increased the turnover rate of 22 proteins (p < 0.05) and tended to benefit proteostasis by increasing muscle protein turnover rates. Obesity and insulin resistance are associated with compromised muscle proteostasis, which may be partially restored by endurance exercise.

Metabolomic and proteomic applications to exercise biomedicine

“…Further to these, work from the Burniston lab has also helped develop application of dynamic proteomics using D 2 O within humans, with a particular application to exercise, in an attempt to further validate its utility for translating key unknown aspects of exercise biomedicine. Specifically, their Absolute Dynamic Profiling Technique for Proteomics (Proteo-ADPT) allows the contributions of synthesis and degradation, to abundance measures in a single analysis [ 89 , 90 ].…”