Paraspinal Muscles in Individuals Undergoing Surgery for Lumbar Spine Pathology Lack a Myogenic Response to an Acute Bout of Resistance Exercise

Overview

Journal JOR Spine

Specialty Orthopedics

Date 2024 Jan 15

PMID 38222805

Authors

Bahar Shahidi

Bradley Anderson

Angel Ordaz

David B Berry

Severin Ruoss

Vinko Zlomislic

R Todd Allen

Steven R Garfin

Mazda Farshad

Simon Schenk

Samuel R Ward

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Lumbar spine pathology (LSP) is a common source of low back or leg pain, and paraspinal muscle in these patients demonstrates fatty and fibrotic infiltration, and cellular degeneration that do not reverse with exercise-based rehabilitation. However, it is unclear of this lack of response is due to insufficient exercise stimulus, or an inability to mount a growth response. The purpose of this study was to compare paraspinal muscle gene expression between individuals with LSP who do and do not undergo an acute bout of resistance exercise.

Methods: Paraspinal muscle biopsies were obtained from 64 individuals with LSP undergoing spinal surgery. Eight participants performed an acute bout of machine-based lumbar extension resistance exercise preoperatively. Gene expression for 42 genes associated with adipogenic/metabolic, atrophic, fibrogenic, inflammatory, and myogenic pathways was measured, and differential expression between exercised and non-exercised groups was evaluated for (a) the full cohort, and (b) an age, gender, acuity, and etiology matched sub-cohort. Principal components analyses were used to identify gene expression clustering across clinical phenotypes.

Results: The exercised cohort demonstrated upregulation of inflammatory gene IL1B, inhibition of extracellular matrix components (increased MMP3&9, decreased TIMP1&3, COL1A1) and metabolic/adipogenic genes (FABP4, PPARD, WNT10B), and downregulation of myogenic (MYOD, ANKRD2B) and atrophic (FOXO3) genes compared to the non-exercised cohort, with similar patterns in the matched sub-analysis. There were no clinical phenotypes significantly associated with gene expression profiles.

Conclusion: An acute bout of moderate-high intensity resistance exercise did not result in upregulation of myogenic genes in individuals with LSP. The response was characterized by mixed metabolic and fibrotic gene expression, upregulation of inflammation, and downregulation of myogenesis.

Citing Articles

Artificial Intelligence in Spine and Paraspinal Muscle Analysis.

Elliott J, Wesselink E, Crawford R, Cornwall J, McKay M, Smith Z Adv Exp Med Biol. 2024; 1462:465-473.

PMID: 39523283 DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-64892-2_28.

Paraspinal muscles in individuals undergoing surgery for lumbar spine pathology lack a myogenic response to an acute bout of resistance exercise.

Shahidi B, Anderson B, Ordaz A, Berry D, Ruoss S, Zlomislic V JOR Spine. 2024; 7(1):e1291.

PMID: 38222805 PMC: 10782077. DOI: 10.1002/jsp2.1291.

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