The time course of changes in skeletal muscle metabolites during muscle repair, as detected by proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Abstract

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is characterized by progressive deterioration of muscles due to the lack of dystrophin. To date there is no effective method for monitoring DMD progression without reverting to biopsies and subjective muscle strength testing. With the discovery of the mdx mouse muscular dystrophy, similar to DMD, and the accessibility and use of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), $\sp1$H-NMR may prove valuable to monitor progression and track therapy. Ex vivo and extract $\sp1$H-NMR studies from this laboratory indicate that the resonances contributed by taurine and other metabolites are indicators of repair and disease progression. Following these metabolites may provide information to interpret the repair sequence by non-invasive means. Experiments were designed to test whether $\sp1$H-NMR can detect the phases of myofiber repair 0-14 days (d) after an imposed injury to C57 mouse tibialis anterior (TA) muscle. Muscle crush injury was employed to produce synchronous muscle repair. Water-soluble metabolites were extracted from TA crushed, uncrushed and control muscle samples using perchloric acid. One-dimensional spectra were acquired from double-coded extracts on a narrow bore 500 MHz spectrometer using sodium 3-trimethylsilyl-propionate as a quantitative chemical shift reference. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)