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1093/brain/awn264
SCIENTIF IC COMMENTARY
The Author (2008). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org
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Scientific Commentary behind this seemingly paradoxical, if not villainous, intent? A very good one indeed that stems from an old, intriguing, and still unexplained observation that, whilst mature myofibres can carry high levels of mutant mtDNA including mtDNA, myoblasts usually do not. Myoblasts derive from precursor cells, also termed satellite cells, which are embedded between the sarcolemma and the basal membrane of myofibres. They are dormant cells in normal post-natal conditions, but can be reactivated and take part in muscle regeneration or hypertrophy under suitable stimuli. As a consequence, muscle regeneration in response to controlled damage or exercise-linked hypertrophy could induce the activation and recruitment of deletion-free satellite cells and determine a reduction of the mtDNA mutation load. Encouraging results were obtained along this line by two proof-of-principle experiments carried out in the late 1990s. Limited injury, induced by either myotoxic bupivucaine (Clark et al., 1997) or vigorous resistance exercise (Shoubridge, 1997), in muscles carrying deleterious mtDNA mutations of tRNA genes, was followed by reduction of mutation load and marked increase in the number of cytochrome c oxidase (COX) positive regenerating muscle fibers (COX is one of the respiratory chain complexes that are partly encoded by, and dependent on, intact mtDNA). Murphy et al. have now applied the same concept to investigate the potential therapeutic effects of prolonged (12 weeks) progressive overload leg resistance training in eight Chronic Progressive External Ophthalmoplegia patients with muscle-restricted, heteroplasmic mtDNAs. Results have again been encouraging: at the end of the training programme, all patients displayed increased muscle strength and improved muscle oxidative capacity, ostensibly due to myofibre regeneration and recruitment of satellite cells. However, these positive changes were associated with a limited fall of mtDNA mutation load (4.3%, not significant), suggesting that better performance may largely be due to the general effects of training rather than to a favourable genotype shift. It is possible that accumulation of mtDNA in ragged-red, severely abnormal areas along the muscle fibre can hamper or limit their clearance; it is also possible that the same triggers that induce activation of satellite cells may also stimulate mtDNA replication, which for shorter mtDNAs can be faster and more efficient than for normal-size mtDNA species. But there is another, more simple, possibilitynamely that the period of observation may have been just too short for the phenomena induced by resistance training to be completed, including mtDNA genotype shift. By and large, the results of this study are encouraging and promising; together with previous data from the same group (Taivassalo et al., 2001), they do suggest that controlled physical training is beneficial in certain types of mtDNA-associated muscle disorders, and warrant further investigation of this approach as a potential treatment. In conclusion, we can take a concordant message from these studies: controlled physical training protocols combine
from physical exercise and a sedentary lifestyle are often recommended in these patients. This view is supported by results of previous studies in both BMD patients and in a dystrophinopathy mouse model (the mdx mouse) consisting of training protocols involving eccentric resistance, or conducted at maximal exertion level. However, based on the above considerations, these interventions may predictably be unsuitable and indeed potentially deleterious in a dystrophic condition such as BMD. However, Sveen et al. used a submaximal endurance (aerobic) exercise programme based on 30 min cycloergometer sessions at 65% of maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) to evaluate both safety and clinical improvement. The programme was carried out over 12 weeks, but interestingly six patients continued for a full year. The primary end-points of this study were VO2max, maximal workload (Wmax), plasma creatine kinase levels and self-reported questionnaires. Careful investigation of numerous output measures included needle muscle biopsies from the left vastus lateralis, taken before and after the 12-week programme, bi-monthly plasma creatine kinase determinations, dynamometer-based evaluation of muscle strength, daily living reports, total body DEXA scanning, and full vital capacity and echocardiography. Results were both sound and encouraging: no adverse reactions (e.g. no creatine kinase increment), and instead substantial increase of both VO2max and Wmax in patients versus controls, sustained increase in muscle strength, up to and possibly beyond 1 year, and self-reported improvements in endurance, leg muscle strength and walking distance. Importantly, no morphological changes were observed in the muscle biopsy taken at the end of the 12-week training period, suggesting that endurance exercise does not accelerate the exhaustion of the regenerative pool of muscle satellite cells. These results should prompt physicians to recommend low-tomoderate aerobic exercise in the management protocol of BMD, and warrant future investigation for other conditions associated with muscular dystrophy. In fact, results concordant with those by Sveen et al. were also reported by randomized controlled trials based on training protocols in myotonic dystrophy (Lindeman et al., 1995) or facioscapulo-humeral dystrophy (FSHD; van der Kooi et al., 2004) patients (reviewed by van der Kooi et al., 2005). Taken together, these studies support the idea that exercise programmes may indeed maximize muscle and cardiorespiratory function and prevent additional disuse atrophy in patients with specific muscle dystrophies, such as mild BMD, FSHD and myotonic dystrophy. The second paper, by Julie Murphy and colleagues, deals with a specific mitochondrial myopathysporadic, adultonset chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia associated with a single, heteroplasmic deletion of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in skeletal muscle. In this case a resistance, rather than endurance, training protocol was adopted, and Murphy et al. aimed in fact to damage the myofibres carrying abnormal mtDNA. What is the rationale
Scientific Commentary clinical efficacy with other noteworthy features, such as low-cost, user-friendliness and high complianceat least in patients with sufficient residual motor capacityand exercise may itself trigger repair processes in affected muscles. Massimo Zeviani Unit of Molecular Neurogenetics Center for the Study of Childrens Mitochondrial Diseases Pierfranco and Luisa Mariani Foundation C. Besta Institute of Neurology IRCCS, Milan, Italy E-mail: zeviani@istituto-besta.it
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Kraemer WJ. American College of Sports Medicine position stand on progression models in resistance training for healthy adults. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2002; 34: 36480. Lindeman E, Leffers P, Spaans F, Drukker J, Reulen J, Kerckhoffs M, et al. Strength training in patients with myotonic dystrophy and hereditary motor and sensory neuropathy: a randomized clinical trial. Arch Phys Med Rehabil 1995; 76: 61220. Murphy J, Blakely E, Schaefer A, He L, Wyrick P, Haller R, et al. Resistance training in patients with single, large-scale deletions of mitochondrial DNA. Brain 2008; Sep 6 [Epub ahead of print]. Proske U, Morgan DL. Muscle damage from eccentric exercise: mechanism, mechanical signs, adaptation and clinical applications. J Physiol 2001; 537: 33345. Shoubridge EA, Johns T, Karpati G. Complete restoration of a wild-type mtDNA genotype in regenerating muscle fibres in a patient with a tRNA point mutation and mitochondrial encephalomyopathy. Hum Mol Genet 1997; 6: 223942. Sveen ML, Jeppesen TD, Hauerslev S, Kber L, Krag TO, Vissing J. Endurance training improves fitness and strength in patients with Becker muscular dystrophy. Brain 2008; Sep 6 [Epub ahead of print]. Taivassalo T, Shoubridge EA, Chen J, Kennaway NG, DiMauro S, Arnold DL, et al. Aerobic conditioning in patients with mitochondrial myopathies: physiological, biochemical, and genetic effects. Ann Neurol 2001; 50: 13341. van der Kooi EL, Lindeman E, Riphagen I. Strength training and aerobic exercise training for muscle disease. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2005; 1: CD003907. van der Kooi EL, Vogels OJ, van Asseldonk RJ, Lindeman E, Hendriks JC, Wohlgemuth M, et al. Strength training and albuterol in facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. Neurology 2004; 63: 7028.