Effect of endurance training and/or fish oil supplemented diet on cytoplasmic fatty acid binding protein in rat skeletal muscles and heart.

Endurance training and/or a fish oil supplemented diet affect cytoplasmic fatty acid binding protein (FABP(c)) content in rat skeletal muscles and heart. After 8 weeks of swimming, trained rats exhibited higher FABP(c) content in the extensor digitorum longus (EDL) and in the gastrocnemius than did control rats (30%). The FABP(c) increase was associated with an increase of citrate synthase activity (85% and 93%, respectively, in the two muscles), whereas lactate dehydrogenase activity decreased significantly. In contrast, in the soleus and in the heart we did not observe any effect of exercise either on FABP(c) or on the metabolic profile. Therefore, increasing oxidative capacities of muscle by exercise resulted in a concomitant increase of the FABP(c) content. Giving a polyunsaturated fatty acid (omega-3) supplemented diet for eight weeks induced a large rise of the FABP(c) in EDL (300%), gastrocnemius (250%), soleus (50%) and heart (15%) without a concurrent accumulation of intramuscular triglycerides or modification of the citrate synthase activity, suggesting that polyunsaturated fatty acids may increase FABP(c) content by up-regulating fatty acid metabolism genes via peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha activation. Endurance trained rats fed with an omega-3 diet had similar FABP(c) content in the gastrocnemius muscle when compared to sedentary omega-3 fed rats, whereas an additive effect of exercise and diet was observed in the EDL. The FABP(c) in the soleus and in the heart of rats fed with omega-3 supplements remained constant whether rats performed exercise or not. As a result, both exercise and omega-3-enriched diet influenced FABP(c) content in muscle. These two physiological treatments presumably acted on FABP(c) content by increasing fatty acid flux within the cell.

Distribution of proteasomes and of the five proteolytic activities in rat tissues.

Five peptidase activities (ChT-L, T-L, PGPH, BrAAP, and SNAAP) of the proteasome, and its caseinolytic activity, were measured in crude extracts of 10 rat tissues under experimental conditions simulating those found in vivo, thereby eliminating the alterations observed with the purified enzyme. The total and individual peptidase activities varied considerably from one tissue to another, whereas the proteolytic activity measured with [(14)C]methylcasein varied no more than twofold. The tissue-specific variations in individual peptidase activities may reflect tissue-specific differences in proteasome subunit composition, or the presence of regulators. Immunological assay using an antibody directed against the iota (alpha1) subunit showed that there was no correlation between protein abundance and peptidase activity. The results also show that the different peptidase activities are not representative of proteasome distribution in the different tissues.

Changes in 20S proteasome activity during ageing of the LOU rat.

Muscular functions decline and muscle mass decreases during ageing. In the rat, there is a 27% decrease in muscle protein between 18 and 34 months of age. We examined age-related changes in the proteasome-dependent proteolytic pathway in rats at 4, 18, 24, 29 and 34 months of age. The three best characterised activities of the proteasome (chymotrypsin-like, trypsin-like and peptidylglutamyl peptide hydrolase) increased to 29 months and then decreased in the senescent animal. These variations in activity were accompanied by an identical change in the quantity of 20S proteasome measured by Western blot, whereas the S4 subunit of the 19S regulator and the quantity of ubiquitin-linked proteins remained constant. mRNA of subunits C3, C5, C9, and S4 increased in the senescent animal, but ubiquitin mRNA levels were unchanged. These findings suggest that the 20S proteasome may be partly responsible for the muscular atrophy observed during ageing in the rat.