What Makes Muscle Grow? Work- But How?

It’s a fairly simple and basic concept, muscles grow as a result of us working them- a notion that many are guilt of taking for granted. The real mystery to most of us is what makes this unique and how muscle growth and bulking up actually happens. A new study has lead researchers to identify the key ingredient to promote growth of the muscles. Working muscle fibers play a major factor as they send signals to the surrounding muscle stem cells that they need to multiply and bunch together. Scientifically speaking, the serum response factor or Srd translate the mechanical signals of working muscles into a chemical reaction. Learn more about what the researchers found during their studies on the muscles at work.

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“This signal from the muscle fiber controls stem cell behavior and participation in muscle growth,” says Athanassia Sotiropoulos of Inserm in France. “It is unexpected and quite interesting.” It might also lead to new ways to combat muscle atrophy.

Sotiropoulos’ team became interested in Srf’s role in muscle in part because their earlier studies in mice and humans showed that Srf concentrations decline with age. That led them to think Srf might be a culprit in the muscle atrophy so common in aging.

The new findings support that view, but Srf doesn’t work in the way the researchers had anticipated. Srf was known to control many other genes within muscle fibers. That Srf also influences the activities of the satellite stem cells came as a surprise.

Mice with muscle fibers lacking Srf are no longer able to grow when they are experimentally overloaded, the new research shows. That’s because satellite cells don’t get the message to proliferate and fuse with those pre-existing myofibers.

Srf works through a network of genes, including one known as Cox2. That raises the intriguing possibility that commonly used Cox2 inhibitors — think ibuprofen — might work against muscle growth or recovery, Sotiropoulos notes.
Treatments designed to tweak this network of factors might be used to wake muscle stem cells up and enhance muscle growth in circumstances such as aging or following long periods of bed rest, she says. Most likely, such therapies would be more successfully directed not at Srf itself, which has varied roles, but at its targets.

“It may be difficult to find a beneficial amount of Srf,” she says. “Its targets, interleukins and prostaglandins, may be easier to manipulate.”

Source

Previous to this study, the serum response factor (Srf) was known to control the actions of the other genes within the muscle fibers. In addition to this knowledge, the Srf influences activities of the satellite stem cells. The amount of Srfs we have declines with age and researchers decided to conducted this research to determine if this was the actual cause of muscle atrophy common with the aging process.

Another interesting part of this study shows that Srf works through a network of genes, including the one called Cox2. The reason this is interesting is, common OTC pain relievers such as ibuprofen are used as Cox2 inhibitors. This means that the OTC pain killers with this effect may actually be working against your muscle growth and recovery- a fact we touched on in prior posts.

Watch this video about what to eat to gain muscle, burn fat and build lean muscle mass…

Treatments have been made to help the performance of the Srfs and process in order to spark the muscle stem cell growth in order to promote muscle growth.

Have you heard of the serum response factor? Do you think research about the process will help to develop treatment for muscle atrophy?

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