Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Mass maintenance of skeletal muscle plays essential roles in prevention and treatment of muscle disorders, debilitation and weakness. The regulation and role of autophagic pathway in protein of skeletal muscle are the research frontiers all over the world, which offer new ideas and thoughts for the further study of muscle mass maintenance.
OBJECTIVE: To discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of autophagic signaling transduction pathway in metabolic remodeling of catabolism in skeletal muscle.
METHODS: An online search was performed by the ISI Web of knowledge database (1970/2010) with key words “autophagy, skeletal muscle, protein, muscle atrophy” in English. The functions of autophagic signaling pathway in muscle, loss mass maintenance and metabolic remodeling were summarized, and the research progress in autophagy-lysosome systems was analyzed.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: According to inclusion and exclusion criteria, 64 papers were chosen. The activation of autophagic signaling system contributes to the damage of the myoprotein and the progress of muscle atrophy, but excessive autophagy like ubiquitin-proteasome system do have negative impacts on muscle mass. At the same time, autophagic signaling system also contributes to maintaining steady-state in muscle fibers. In addition, autophagic system in skeletal muscle is different from other metabolisms, and has two kinds of progresses, including short and long items, which are controlled by two different signaling systems. Therefore, the remodeling mechanism of autophagic signaling system needs to be further studied in the future.