Methods of inhibiting atrophy or promoting hypertrophy

摘要

A method of inhibiting skeletal muscle atrophy or increasing skeletal muscle hypertrophy in muscle cells in a vertebrate animal, by inhibiting signaling pathways that lead to skeletal muscle atrophy and activating pathways that lead to skeletal hypertrophy. In particular, by treating the cells with a specific activator of the PI3K/Akt pathway. Also provided is a method of identifying a test agent that inhibits atrophy or causes hypertrophy in muscle cells. This method comprises: (a) obtaining cells that express the following: 1) Akt; 2) an Akt substrate/reporter construct capable of measuring Akt substrate activation; 3) Raf; 4) a Raf substrate/reporter construct capable of measuring Raf substrate activation; (b) subjecting the cells to a test agent; (c) measuring the amount of Akt substrate activation in (a) (2); (d) measuring the amount of Raf substrate activation in (a) (4), wherein activation of the Akt substrate absent activation of the Raf substrate is used to identify a test agent that inhibits muscle atrophy.