A systems biology approach to studying skeletal muscle ageing

研究骨骼肌衰老的系统生物学方法

• 批准号: G1100015/1
• 负责人: James Timmons
• 金额: $ 123.49万
• 依托单位: Loughborough University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=G1100015%2F1
• 关键词: systems; biology; approach; studying; skeletal

Ageing is associated with loss of muscle strength and endurance (muscle quality) which severely impairs mobility of people in everyday life. Our understanding of what determines muscle quality in humans, and how this is altered as we age is not sufficient to design specific interventions that may substantially protect people from loss of function. These interventions could be specialised clinical physiotherapy which includes devices that enhance the process of exercise and they could involve new drug therapies that promote improved muscle function or accelerate the gains made with physiotherapy by accelerating the biological effects of exercise.The starting point for our project is to first generate detailed knowledge of the age related process by studying muscle samples obtained from younger and older human subjects. We have already produced a lot of data, using a new technology called a gene chip . Gene chips provide a snap-shot of the genes switched on and off in the muscle tissue and we can then relate these profiles to the age (of physical fitness) of each subject. The analysis of all this data requires establishment of novel statistical models to cope with its complexity. The studies of each human subject can produce 60,000 data points and a data set of this size produces new challenges when trying to summarise the conclusions. We will develop new methods for this project which will be of broad use to the biomedical community, where application of similar technology is used to study cancer and other major diseases.

衰老与肌肉力量和耐力（肌肉质量）的丧失有关，这严重损害了人们日常生活中的活动能力。我们对决定人类肌肉质量的因素以及肌肉质量如何随着年龄的增长而改变的了解不足以设计出可以在很大程度上保护人们免受功能丧失的具体干预措施。这些干预措施可以是专门的临床物理疗法，其中包括增强运动过程的设备，也可以涉及促进改善肌肉功能的新药物疗法，或通过加速运动的生物效应来加速物理疗法所取得的成果。我们项目的出发点是首先通过研究从年轻和老年受试者获得的肌肉样本，生成与年龄相关的过程的详细知识。我们已经使用一种称为基因芯片的新技术产生了大量数据。基因芯片提供了肌肉组织中基因开启和关闭的快照，然后我们可以将这些概况与每个受试者的年龄（身体健康）联系起来。所有这些数据的分析需要建立新的统计模型来应对其复杂性。对每个人类受试者的研究可以产生 60,000 个数据点，这种规模的数据集在试图总结结论时带来了新的挑战。我们将为该项目开发新方法，该方法将广泛用于生物医学界，应用类似技术来研究癌症和其他主要疾病。