Cachexia, a condition prevalent in many chronically ill patients, is characterized by weight loss, fatigue, and decreases in muscle mass and function. Cachexia is associated with tumor burden and disease-related malnutrition, but other studies implicate chemotherapy as being causative. We investigated the effects of a chemotherapy drug cocktail on myofibrillar protein abundance and synthesis, anabolic signaling mechanisms, and substrate availability. On day 4 of differentiation, L6 myotubes were treated with vehicle (1.4 μl/ml DMSO) or a chemotherapy drug cocktail (a mixture of cisplatin [20 μg/ml], leucovorin [10 μg/ml], and 5-fluorouracil [5-FLU; 50 μg/ml]) for 24-72 h. Compared to myotubes treated with vehicle, those treated with the drug cocktail showed 50%-80% reductions in the abundance of myofibrillar proteins, including myosin heavy chain-1, troponin, and tropomyosin (p < 0.05). Cells treated with only a mixture of cisplatin and 5-FLU had identical reductions in myofibrillar protein abundance. Myotubes treated with the drug cocktail also showed >50% reductions in the phosphorylation of AKTSer473 and of mTORC1 substrates ribosomal protein S6Ser235/236 , its kinase S6K1Thr389 and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 4E-binding protein 1 (all p < 0.05). Drug treatment impaired peptide chain initiation in myofibrillar protein fractions and insulin-stimulated glucose uptake (p = 0.06) but increased the expression of autophagy markers beclin-1 and microtubule-associated proteins 1A/1B light chain 3B (p < 0.05), and of apoptotic marker, cleaved caspase 3 (p < 0.05). Drug treatment reduced the expression of mitochondrial markers cytochrome oxidase and succinate dehydrogenase (p < 0.05). The observed profound negative effects of this chemotherapy drug cocktail on myotubes underlie a need for approaches that can reduce the negative effects of these drugs on muscle metabolism.
Keywords: cachexia; chemotherapy; protein synthesis; skeletal muscle.
© 2021 The Authors. Physiological Reports published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Physiological Society and the American Physiological Society.