L-30 - Aberrant redox signaling in age-related muscle decline.

The loss of muscle mass and weakness that accompanies ageing is a major contributor to physical frailty and loss of independence in older people and a failure of muscle to adapt to physiological stresses play important roles in theses deficits. The role of redox regulation in control of specific stress responses, including the generation of heat shock proteins (HSPs) by muscle appears to be particularly important and affected by ageing. Transgenic and knockout studies in experimental mouse models in which redox and HSP responses were modified have demonstrated the importance of these processes in maintenance of muscle mass and function during ageing. Data also indicate the potential of these processes to interact with and influence ageing in other tissues. Thus there is increasing evidence that skeletal muscle may play a fundamental role in regulating ageing outcomes in other tissues through cross-tissue communication. In particular there is now considerable evidence for roles of redox signaling and HSPs in regulation of inflammatory pathways and emerging evidence for a role in maintaining whole body proteostasis that appear to be important in their impact on organismal ageing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]