Inhibition of caspase mediated apoptosis restores muscle function after crush injury in rat skeletal muscle

Although muscle regeneration after injury is accompanied by apoptotic cell death, prolonged apoptosis inhibits muscle restoration. The goal of our study was to provide evidence that inhibition of apoptosis improves muscle function following blunt skeletal muscle injury. Therefore, 24 rats were used for induction of injury to the left soleus muscle using an instrumented clamp. All animals received either 3.3 mg/kg i.p. of the pan-caspase inhibitor Z-valinyl-alanyl-dl-aspartyl-fluoromethylketone (z-VAD.fmk) (n = 12 animals) or equivalent volumes of the vehicle solution DMSO (n = 12 animals) at 0 and 48 h after trauma. After assessment of the fast twitch and tetanic contraction capacity of the muscle at days 4 and 14 post injury, sampling of muscle tissue served for analysis of cell apoptosis (cleaved caspase 3 immunohistochemistry), cell proliferation (BrdU immunohistochemistry) as well as of muscle tissue area and myofiber diameter (HE planimetric analysis). Muscle strength analysis after 14 days in the z-VAD.fmk treated group revealed a significant increase in relative muscle strength when compared to the DMSO treated group. In contrast to the DMSO treated injured muscle, showing a transient switch towards a fast-twitching muscle phenotype (significant increase of the twitch-to-tetanic force ratio), z-VAD.fmk treated animals showed an enhanced healing process with a faster restoration of the twitch-to-tetanic force ratio towards the physiological slow-twitching muscle phenotype. This enhancement of muscle function was accompanied by a significant decrease of cell apoptosis and cell proliferation at day 4 as well as by a significant increase of muscle tissue area at day 4. At day 14 after injury z-VAD.fmk treated animals presented with a significant increase of myofiber diameter compared to the DMSO treated animals. Thus, z-VAD.fmk could provide a promising option in the anti-apoptotic therapy of muscle injury.