Abstract

Mitochondrial dysfunction is involved in the development of aging. Here, we examined the effect of aging on the skeletal muscle expression of two isoforms of the transcriptional peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma) coactivator-1 (PGC-1) in an experimental murine model of accelerated aging, the senescence-accelerated mouse (SAM). The senescence-accelerated prone mice (SAM-P8) showed no changes in PGC-1 alpha, but a decrease in PGC-1 beta expression (52% reduction, p .001) was observed compared to the senescence-accelerated resistant mice (SAM-R1). In agreement with the proposed role of PGC-1 beta as an estrogen-related receptor (ERR) protein ligand, the expression of the ERR alpha target gene medium-chain acylcoenzyme A dehydrogenase was strongly suppressed (85%, p .001) in SAM-P8. The decrease in the expression of medium-chain acyl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase was consistent with the reduction in ERR alpha DNA-binding activity of SAM-P8. These findings indicate that the age-mediated decrease in PGG-1 beta expression in SAM-P8 skeletal muscle affects the expression of genes involved in mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation.