RNA-seq analysis of Akt1-mediated muscle growth

Background: Skeletal muscle constitutes a significant portion of total body mass and is a major regulator of systemic metabolism as it serves as the major site for glucose disposal and the main reservoir for amino acids. With aging, cachexia, starvation, and myositis, there is a preferential loss of fast glycolytic muscle fibers. We previously reported a mouse model in which a constitutively-active Akt transgene is induced to express in a subset of muscle groups leading to the hypertrophy of type IIb myofibers with an accompanying increase in strength. This muscle growth protects mice in various cardio-metabolic disease models, but little is known about the underlying cellular and molecular mechanisms by which fast-twitch muscle impacts disease processes and regulates distant tissues. Purpose: In the present study, poly(A)+ tail mRNA-seq was performed to characterize the transcriptome of the hypertrophic gastrocnemius muscle from Akt1-transgenic mice. Results: Pathway analysis for the 3,481 differentially expressed genes in muscle identified enriched signaling pathways involving growth, cell cycle regulation, and inflammation. Combined metabolomics and transcriptomic analyses revealed that Akt1-induced muscle growth mediated a metabolic shift involving reductions in glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation, but enhanced pentose phosphate pathway activation and increased branch chain amino acid accumulation. Signal peptide prediction analysis revealed 241 differentially expressed in muscle transcripts that potentially encode secreted proteins. A number of these secreted factors have signaling properties that are consistent with the myogenic, metabolic and cardiovascular-protective properties that have previously been associated with type IIb muscle growth. Conclusions: These data reveal that enhanced Akt signaling promotes the activation of the pentose phosphate and the accumulation of branched amino acids that are important for the production of nucleic acids and proteins. Numerous known and novel transcripts potentially encoding muscle secreted proteins were identified, indicating the importance of fast-twitch muscle in inter-tissue communication. Overall design: mRNA profiles of adult muscle growth from four muscle-specific conditional Akt transgenic (DTG) and four littermate control mice (1256[3Emut]Mck-rtTA) were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina HiSeq.

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Wu CL, Satomi Y, Walsh K