Androgen-Mediated Improvement of Body Composition and Muscle
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55 Androgen-mediated improvement of body composition and muscle function involves a novel early transcriptional program including IGF1, mechano growth factor, and induction of b-catenin Michael A Gentile, Pascale V Nantermet, Robert L Vogel, Robert Phillips1, Daniel Holder2, Paul Hodor1, Chun Cheng1, Hongyue Dai1, Leonard P Freedman and William J Ray Merck Research Laboratories, Department of Molecular Endocrinology, West Point, Pennsylvania 19486, USA 1Department of Molecular Profiling, Rosetta Inpharmatics LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., West Point, Pennsylvania 19486, USA 2Merck Research Laboratories, Department of Biometrics, West Point, Pennsylvania 19486, USA (Correspondence should be addressed to W J Ray who is now at Merck Research Laboratories, Department of Alzheimer’s Disease Research, West Point, Pennsylvania 19486, USA; Email: [email protected]) Abstract Androgens promote anabolism in the musculoskeletal system while generally repressing adiposity, leading to lean body composition. Circulating androgens decline with age, contributing to frailty, osteoporosis, and obesity; however, the mechanisms by which androgens modulate body composition are largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate that aged castrated rats develop increased fat mass, reduced muscle mass and strength, and lower bone mass. Treatment with testosterone or 5a-dihydrotestosterone (DHT) reverses the effects on muscle and adipose tissues while only aromatizable testosterone increased bone mass. During the first week, DHT transiently increased soleus muscle nuclear density and induced expression of IGF1 and its splice variant mechano growth factor (MGF) without early regulation of the myogenic factors MyoD, myogenin, monocyte nuclear factor, or myostatin. A genome-wide microarray screen was also performed to identify potential pro-myogenic genes that respond to androgen receptor activation in vivo within 24 h. Of 24 000 genes examined, 70 candidate genes were identified whose functions suggest initiation of remodeling and regeneration, including the type II muscle genes for myosin heavy chain type II and parvalbumin and the chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein-1. Interestingly, Axin and Axin2, negative regulators of b-catenin, were repressed, indicating modulation of the b-catenin pathway. DHT increased total levels of b-catenin protein, which accumulated in nuclei in vivo. Likewise, treatment of C2C12 myoblasts with both IGF1Ea and MGF C-terminal peptide increased nuclear b-catenin in vitro. Thus, we propose that androgenic anabolism involves early downregulation of Axin and induction of IGF1, leading to nuclear accumulation of b-catenin, a pro-myogenic, anti-adipogenic stem cell regulatory factor. Journal of Molecular Endocrinology (2010) 44, 55–73 Introduction This loss of endogenous androgens parallels several symptoms of aging, including decreased muscle mass Androgens are important endocrine regulators of male and function (Snyder et al. 1999), increased visceral fat sexual development and maintenance of muscle, bone, (Katznelson et al. 1998) and bone loss (Katznelson et al. adipose tissue, and body composition (Vermeulen 1996). Treatment with testosterone improves muscle 1998, Vermeulen et al. 1999). Testosterone, the major mass and strength, bone density, and reduces visceral circulating androgen, can act directly or be converted fat in a variety of subjects (Bardin 1996, Katznelson et al. to the more potent androgen 5a-dihydrotestosterone 1996, Bhasin et al. 1997, 2000, Swerdloff & Wang 2003). (DHT) by 5a-reductase, or to estrogens by aromatase Thus, restoring androgens to youthful levels could (Russell & Wilson 1994, Simpson et al. 1994). Both potentially be used to manage sarcopenia, osteoporosis, testosterone and DHT activate the androgen receptor visceral obesity, and frailty. (AR), a nuclear receptor that functions as a transcrip- The mechanisms by which androgens promote tion factor in hormone-sensitive cells (Chang et al. 1995, anabolism in adult animals are largely unknown. AR Heinlein & Chang 2002). After reaching peak levels is detectable in bone and muscle cells, but levels are in early adulthood, androgen levels decline with age low compared with reproductive tissues such as the in both sexes (Tenover 1994, Lamberts et al. 1997). prostate and levator ani muscle (Antonio et al. 1999, Journal of Molecular Endocrinology (2010) 44, 55–73 DOI: 10.1677/JME-09-0048 0952–5041/10/044–055 q 2010 Society for Endocrinology Printed in Great Britain Online version via http://www.endocrinology-journals.org Downloaded from Bioscientifica.com at 09/29/2021 05:54:11PM via free access 56 M A GENTILE and others . Androgen control of body composition Monks et al. 2004). Nevertheless, castration in rats b-Catenin, through its action in cell adhesion and reduces contractile force in muscles of the hindlimb Wnt signal transduction, plays a critical role in (Brown et al. 2001) and produces ultrastructural signs of embryonic development and regulation of adult stem degeneration and reduced protein synthesis (Ustunel cell populations in various tissues (Clevers 2006). et al. 2003). Treatment with anti-androgens limits gains In vitro, b-catenin is both necessary and sufficient for in muscle strength during weight training (Ruzic et al. myogenesis and inhibits adipogenesis (Ross et al. 2000, 2003). Conversely, repletion with testosterone increases Petropoulos & Skerjanc 2002). Moreover, b-catenin is lean mass and muscle strength, improves nitrogen balance, essential for adult skeletal muscle growth and regen- and induces myofiber hypertrophy (Sinha-Hikim et al. eration in vivo (Polesskaya et al. 2003, Reya & Clevers 2002). Thus, testosterone regulates both the mass and 2005, Armstrong et al. 2006), and myonuclear b-catenin function of skeletal muscle in adults. is up-regulated during overload-induced muscle hyper- At the cellular level, the effects of testosterone on trophy in adults (Armstrong & Esser 2005). Muscle body composition might involve recruitment or acti- regrowth following atrophy is associated with down- vation of resident myogenic precursor cells to existing regulation of glycogen synthase kinase-3b (GSK3b), a myofibers (Chen et al. 2005b). Satellite cells cultured negative regulator of b-catenin (van der Velden et al. from porcine muscle express AR, and AR agonists delay 2007, Schakman et al. 2008). Finally, b-catenin promotes their differentiation (Doumit et al. 1996). Furthermore, self-renewal of satellite stem cells (Perez-Ruiz et al. in muscle biopsies from men that exhibited gains in 2008) Together, these findings suggest that Wnt/ myofiber volume and strength following 20 weeks of b-catenin signaling plays an active role in the mainten- testosterone treatment, satellite cell number was ance of body composition in adults. However, the role increased (Sinha-Hikim et al.2003). Other studies for b-catenin in androgen-mediated muscle growth has report changes in the local expression of insulin-like not been studied. growth factor 1 (IGF1) in muscle samples from patients An important step towards understanding andro- receiving anabolic androgens (Sheffield-Moore 2000, genic signaling in regulating body composition will be Ferrando et al. 2002). As IGF1 and its related splice to define the processes governed by AR and the cell variants stimulate satellite cell proliferation and pro- type(s) in which AR exerts its anabolic effect. Since mote muscle hypertrophy (Musaro et al. 2001, Hill & many studies use testosterone, the relative contri- Goldspink 2003, Goldspink & Yang 2004), these data butions of the AR and estrogen receptors are ambig- suggest that androgens regulate muscle mass by this uous, and some report that estrogen is an essential mechanism. Some in vitro data support the concept that component of androgenic anabolism (Bilezikian et al. androgens act directly on satellite or other precursor 1998, Vandenput et al. 2002). Furthermore, the genes cells. Murine C2C12 cells, which resemble myogenic targeted by AR in muscle, fat, and bone are unknown. precursors, do not express AR, but when AR expression To address these issues, we validated the castrated rat is produced by transfection, AR-selective ligands model and characterized the effects of DHT in the increase myogenin expression and accelerate myoblast soleus muscle and identified genes that respond to differentiation and fusion (Lee 2002, Vlahopoulos et al. DHT within the first week of treatment and are 2005). Mouse C3H10T1/2 fibroblast cells express potential downstream effectors of anabolic action. endogenous AR, and DHT inhibits their differentiation into adipocytes and promotes the expression of MyoD and myosin heavy chain type II (MHC2; Compston 2001, Singh et al. 2003). In addition to satellite cells, AR is Materials and methods expressed in mature myofibers (Saartok et al. 1984, Sar Animal studies and analysis of body composition et al. 1990) in several types of motoneurons (Lumbroso et al. 1996, Piccioni et al. 2001), and in intramuscular All animal studies described in this report were fibroblasts (Monks et al. 2004), and thus could influence approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use growth and function through activation in these cells. Committee. Sprague–Dawley rats (Taconic, Hudson, Finally, androgens regulate systemic levels of IGF1, GH, NY, USA) were purchased following orchidectomy and thyroid hormone, and may oppose the actions of (ORX) or sham orchidectomy (SHAM) at 10 weeks of glucocorticoids, any of which could contribute to the age and maintained