Biomedical Research

Aging is the accumulation of molecular and cellular defects leading to dysfunction of tissues, organs, and systems whose obvious feature is decline of muscle mass and strength. The majority of energy provided to skeletal muscle is produced and cycled in form of ATP which stems mainly from oxidative phosphorylation occurring at the electron transport chain(ETC) of the mitochondria. Over the years, aging theory has been extended to the “Mitochondrial theory of aging” and substantial evidence has emerged from bioenergetic, biochemical and genetic studies to lend support to this theory. Although several lines of evidence support the role for substantial declines in enzyme activity in the etiology of aging, it remains unclear if the expression of polypeptide components of the ETC complexes alter with aging. Here, we determined to observe the morphology change and quantify the expression of several enzymes in ETC and cytoplasm of mitochondrial. Taking these findings together, we suggest that the altered morphology and decreased expression of enzymes in mitochondrial may contribute to aging in human muscles.

Author(s): Wei Qian, Pengcheng Jiang, Rukhsar Ahmad, Yanfang Liu, Yun Gu, Qin Chen, Li Xie, Yongming Ma, Jiang Lin
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