Tweaking Energy Consumption to Combat Muscle Wasting and Obesity

Newswise — Using a new technique to evaluate working muscles in mice, researchers have uncovered physiological mechanisms that could lead to new strategies for combating metabolism-related disorders like muscle wasting and obesity. The study appears in The Journal of General Physiology.

ATP-sensitive potassium (K_ATP) channels, which link membrane excitability to cell metabolism, are abundant in skeletal muscle and play an important role in regulating muscle function and energy consumption. However, it is not clear how K_ATP activation affects muscles under physiological conditions and how this translates to energy use.

Researchers from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine developed a technique to evaluate muscle function in the tibialis anterior leg muscle of living mice. They found that, during low-level exercise, which triggered the opening of K_ATP channels, muscles with disrupted K_ATP function had higher peak force, calcium release, and heat production— which is associated with increased energy consumption— than muscles with normal K_ATP function.

The results show how K_ATP channels control energy use even during mundane, low-intensity activity. Modulating K_ATP channel activity could therefore provide a new strategy to combat metabolic disorders like muscle wasting and cachexia, when the goal is to conserve energy, or obesity, when increasing energy consumption is desired.

Zhu, Z., et al. 2014. J. Gen. Physiol. doi:10.1085/jgp.201311063

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Research reported in this press release was supported by the National Institutes of Health.