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Hypoxia 2009 Speakers
Hans Hoppeler
Department of Anatomy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Email: hoppeler@ana.unibe.ch
Talk Title: Gene Expression in Working Skeletal Muscle
Session: The Working Skeletal Muscle
Abstract: In muscle, massive changes in structure and function can be induced rapidly and muscle tissue can be sampled repeatedly in individuals. The molecular tools enable us now to study the mechanisms of muscle plasticity. Ideally, this research is conducted in view of the structural and functional consequences of the exercise induced changes in gene expression. Muscle cells are able to detect mechanical, metabolic, neuronal and metabolic signals which are transduced over multiple pathways to the muscle genome. Exercise activates many signaling cascades, the individual characteristic of the stress leading to a specific response of a network of signaling pathways. Signaling typically results in the transcription of multiple early genes among those of the well known fos and jun family as well as many other transcription factors. These bind to the promoter regions of downstream genes initiating the structural response of muscle tissue. While signaling is a matter of minutes, early genes are activated over hours leading to modifications of structure genes that can then be effective over days. Repeated exercise sessions thus lead to a concerted accretion of mRNAs which upon translation results in a corresponding protein accretion. On the structural level the protein accretion manifests itself for instance as an increase in mitochondrial volume upon endurance training. A single exercise stimulus carries a molecular signature which is typical both for the type of stimulus (i.e. endurance vs. strength) as well as the actual condition of muscle tissue (i.e. untrained vs. trained). It therefore seems feasible to use molecular tools to judge the properties of an exercise stimulus much earlier and at a finer level than is possible with conventional functional or structural techniques. The current molecular techniques paint a fine picture of the modulatory events involved in muscle malleability. The ultimate challenge that molecular exercise scientists is facing is to extract the biologically relevant information from the sheer mass of data generated by the available technology and to integrate this information into models of system physiologic relevance.

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