In our latest meeting, 44 muscle researches met at the Friedrich-Baur-Institute for the 10th Munich Muscle Meeting. Again, we have a broad range of different muscle research topics in Munich, ranging from molecular biology up to biomechanics.
Dr. Maximilian Kleinert (Helmholtz Centre Munich) opened the session with his talk on “Exercise-stimulated skeletal muscle glucose uptake - implications for glycaemic control.” He clearly demonstrated that exercise is highly relevant in controlling blood glucose concentration, as endurance exercise is twice as powerful than the hormone insulin. Therefore, this knowledge is highly relevant to treat diabetic patients.
However, our muscles are also affected by mitochondrial disorders impairing the function of the muscle. Related to this topic, Dr. Marta Murgia (Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry) demonstrated that no all muscle fibres are affected by glucose intake to the same extend. She and her team developed a technique to analyse proteins within single muscle fibres by using a combination of laser microdissection and single fibre proteomics.
From research in elite sports, we know that highly trained athletes could fulfil extreme performances. The differences in performance outcome between different professional athletes as well as recreational athletes might be based on extreme metabolic changes following intense exercise. By testing this hypothesis, PhD researcher Daniela Schranner (Exercise Biology group, TUM) could show that highly specified athletes possess different metabolic patterns in relation to exercise. Furthermore, she could show that individuality in metabolism has a higher impact on metabolism than exercise itself.
It is well known that intense physical performance is related to muscle strength and also to muscle hypertrophy. The later one is tightly connected to anabolic processes. Here, PhD researcher Sander Verbrugge (Exercise Biology, TUM) could show that muscle protein synthesis is also connected to the carbohydrate metabolism and not exclusively to protein turnover.
However, our muscles are not only responsible to be able running fast, but also to prevent us from injuries and to protect our bones. PhD researcher Fabiana Tanganelli (Geriatric Medicine, LMU) illustrated that muscle atrophy of type II fibres is associated with sarcopenia (the loss of muscle mass with aging) as well as hip fracture.
The skeletal muscles are tightly connected to the central nervous system by by motoric nerves. From in vitro Hill-curve analysis, we know that there is a high correlation between force production and contraction velocity. However, PhD researcher Denis Holzer (Biomechanics in Sports, TUM) showed us with in vivo studies that the muscle is not only a trivial organ, which simple shorten its length by voluntary and involuntary muscle contraction.Here, serial as well as parallel elastic component might play an essential role in force production and movement, especially when they are preloaded.
We thank all speakers for their great and enthusiastic talks. Finally yet importantly, we thank Dr Peter Meinke, who hosted this meeting at the Friedrich-Baur-Institute. We are looking forward to have the next meeting in summer. Prof Kröger has kindly offered to meet up in June at the Department of Physiological Genomics (BioMedical Center of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München). As soon as we have more detailed information, we will inform you. All researches, who are interested to join our community, can send an email to Martin Schönfelder for getting access to our mailing list.
10th Munich Muscle Meeting - A panorama of muscle science
Sport- und Gesundheitswissenschaften, W00BBR-newscat-exercisebiology |