Effects of Partial Knockout of Skeletal Muscle Dynamin-Related Protein 1 on Skeletal Muscle Characteristics in Lean and Obese Mice
Authors: Berger Nicolas , Hockey Briana , Rosen Grace , Fujishiro Atsutaro , Sesaki Hiromi , MacPherson Rebecca , Fajardo Val 
Published: May 2024

Dynamin-related protein 1 (Drp1) is a key regulator of mitochondrial fission and plays an essential role in maintaining skeletal muscle homeostasis. Recent studies reported muscle atrophy in mice when skeletal muscle Drp1 content was reduced. However, whether such atrophic phenotype also exists in diet-induced obese mice remains unknown. We recently reported that reducing skeletal muscle Drp1 resulted in improved whole-body glucose homeostasis and insulin sensitivity in diet-induced obese mice, but not lean healthy mice, suggesting Drp1 may exert divergent effects on physiological phenotypes under different conditions. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effects of partial knockout of skeletal muscle-specific heterozygous Drp1 (mDrp1+/−) on body composition, energy expenditure and skeletal muscle physiology in lean and obese mice. HYPOTHESIS: mDrp1+/− exhibits divergent alterations in physiological characteristics between lean healthy and obese mice. Methods: Tamoxifen-inducible mDrp1+/− mouse model was generated. Nine-week-old male and female mDrp1+/− and wildtype (WT) mice (n=6-8/group) were fed with either a high-fat diet (HFD) or low-fat diet (LFD) for four weeks, received tamoxifen injections, and remained on their respective diet for another four to six weeks. A DXA scan was conducted to measure body composition. Mice were housed in Promethion metabolic cages for 48 hours to measure energy expenditure. Isolated soleus (SOL) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles were used for assessing muscle cross sectional area (CSA) and contractility. Results: HFD-fed mice had significantly higher percentage of body fat ( p = 0.045) and lower respiratory exchange ratio ( p <0.0001) than LFD-fed mice, regardless of genotype. Regarding skeletal muscle characteristics, SOL from mDrp1+/− mice exhibited larger CSA ( p = 0.052) than WT mice, regardless of diet. However, there were no differences in muscle force or fatigue resistance in SOL between groups. In contrast, EDL muscle isolated from mDrp1+/− mice fed with HFD had greater muscle force than WT mice, but interestingly the force was lower in mDrp1+/−/LFD mice than WT/LFD mice (genotype x diet interaction effect, p = 0.001). Consistently, a significant interaction was found in both twitch and tetanic rate of force development and relaxation rates (genotype x diet interaction effect, p = 0.022, p = 0.033, p = 0.040, and p = 0.020, respectively). There was no difference in EDL muscle CSA between groups. CONCLUSION: Our data suggests that partial knockout of Drp1 in skeletal muscle induced divergent effects on CSA, force production and fatigability between diet induced obese and lean healthy mice. This study was supported by the National Institute of Health (R15DK131512). This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.