High Fat Diet-Induced Skeletal Muscle Wasting Is Decreased by Mesenchymal Stem Cells Administration: Implications on Oxidative Stress, Ubiquitin Proteasome Pathway Activation, and Myonuclear Apoptosis

Figure 5

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) administration inhibits increases in ubiquitinated proteins and atrogin-1 and MuRF-1 gene expression levels induced by a high fat diet (HFD) in mice. C57BL/10J male mice were fed with a standard chow (control) or HFD for 38 weeks. At week 30, a subgroup of HFD mice received MSC injected through the tail-vein. At week 38, all mice were sacrificed and the TA was excised and homogenized to evaluate the following: (a) total ubiquitinated (Ub) protein levels through Western blot analysis (tubulin levels were used as the loading control; molecular weight markers are shown in kDa) and (b) quantitative analysis of the experiments from (a). The levels of Ub normalized to tubulin are expressed relative to control mice ( versus control; versus HFD). Detection of atrogin-1 (c) and MuRF-1 (d) mRNA levels through RT-qPCR using 18S as the reference gene. Expressions are shown as the fold of induction relative to the TA from control mice, and the values correspond to the mean ± SD ( versus control; versus HFD).

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