Preponderant Myosin Super-Relaxed State In Skeletal Muscle From Endurance Athletes

Abstract

It has recently been established that myosin, the molecular motor protein, is able to exist in two conformations in relaxed skeletal muscle. These conformations are known as super-relaxed (SRX) and disordered-relaxed (DRX) states and are finely balanced to optimize skeletal muscle metabo-lism. Indeed, SRX myosins are thought to have a 10-fold reduction in ATP turnover compared to DRX myosins. Here, we investigated whether chronic physical activity in humans would be associated with changes in the proportions of SRX and DRX skeletal myosins. For that, we isolated mus-cle fibres from various athletic and sedentary populations and ran a loaded Mant-ATP chase proto-col. We observed that, in endurance-trained athletes, the amounts of myosin molecules in the SRX state was significantly greater than in age-matched sedentary individuals or than in strength athletes. To further assess whether this change would have an impact on the potency of a SRX-inducing pharmacological compound, Mavacamten, we performed similar analyses as above with and without the drug in muscle fibres from endurance athletes. Surprisingly, we found that 0.3 M of Mava-camten had only marginal effects. Altogether, our results indicate that chronic endurance training-status influences resting skeletal myosin conformations, and Mavacamten potency. Our findings also emphasize that environmental stimuli such as exercise can re-wire the molecular metabolism of human skeletal muscle through myosin. SummaryLewis et al., investigate how training-status influences myosin conformations involved in the resting metabolism of skeletal muscle. They find that, in endurance-trained athletes, skeletal myosin preferentially adopts an energy-saving conformation known as super-relaxed state, lowering the metabolic rate and affecting the potency of a super-relaxed state-inducing drug, Mavacamten.