Site-specific failure of redox homeostasis as a cause of age-related loss of skeletal muscle mass and function

随着年龄的增长，我们的肌肉变得越来越小，越来越弱，在运动后更容易受到损伤，损伤后的恢复也严重受损。肌肉丧失导致老年人生活质量严重下降，因为需要更多的帮助和住院护理，体温过低和失禁的风险增加。我们计划在老鼠身上研究这种与年龄相关的肌肉损失是如何发生的，作为最终开发防止人类晚年这些变化的方法的一种手段。许多研究表明，被称为自由基的高活性物质参与了许多组织中与衰老相关的变化，但它们导致肌肉损失的方式尚不清楚。我们将研究这些自由基与肌肉中的一些关键蛋白质发生反应的可能性，这些蛋白质调节肌肉适应日常任务的方式，以防止肌肉受损。我们的研究将描述衰老过程的特征，并确定我们可能修改老年小鼠（也可能是老年人）肌肉的潜在方法，以帮助恢复对日常使用的反应能力，从而保持其肌肉质量。

As we age, our muscles become smaller and weaker, are more susceptible to damage following exercise and recovery from damage is severely impaired. Loss of muscle leads to a severe reduction in quality of life for the elderly due to increased need for assistance and residential care and increased risk of hypothermia and incontinence. We plan to investigate in mice how this age-related loss of muscle occurs as a means of eventually developing ways of preventing these changes in later life in people. A number of studies have indicated that highly reactive substances called free radicals are involved in causing ageing-related changes in many tissues, but the way that they lead to loss of muscle is unclear. We will investigate the possibility that these free radicals react with some key proteins in the muscle that regulate the way that muscle adapts to everyday tasks to prevent damage to the muscle. Our investigations will characterise the processes that occur during ageing and identify potential ways in which we might modify the muscles of old mice (and potentially those of old people) to help restore the ability to respond to everyday use and hence maintain their muscle mass.