Alcohol-induced autophagy contributes to loss in skeletal muscle mass

Patients with alcoholic cirrhosis and hepatitis have severe muscle loss. Since ethanol impairs skeletal muscle protein synthesis but does not increase ubiquitin proteasome-mediated proteolysis, we investigated whether alcohol-induced autophagy contributes to muscle loss. Autophagy induction was studied in: A) Human skeletal muscle biopsies from alcoholic cirrhotics and controls, B) Gastrocnemius muscle from ethanol and pair-fed mice, and C) Ethanol-exposed murine C2C12 myotubes, by examining the expression of autophagy markers assessed by immunoblotting and real-time PCR. Expression of autophagy genes and markers were increased in skeletal muscle from humans and ethanol-fed mice, and in myotubes following ethanol exposure. Importantly, pulse-chase experiments showed suppression of myotube proteolysis upon ethanol-treatment with the autophagy inhibitor, 3-methyladenine (3MA) and not by MG132, a proteasome inhibitor. Correspondingly, ethanol-treated C2C12 myotubes stably expressing GFP-LC3B showed increased autophagy flux as measured by accumulation of GFP-LC3B vesicles with confocal microscopy. The ethanol-induced increase in LC3B lipidation was reversed upon knockdown of Atg7, a critical autophagy gene and was associated with reversal of the ethanol-induced decrease in myotube diameter. Consistently, CT image analysis of muscle area in alcoholic cirrhotics was significantly reduced compared with control subjects. In order to determine whether ethanol per se or its metabolic product, acetaldehyde, stimulates autophagy, C2C12 myotubes were treated with ethanol in the presence of the alcohol dehydrogenase inhibitor (4-methylpyrazole) or the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase inhibitor (cyanamide). LC3B lipidation increased with acetaldehyde treatment and increased further with the addition of cyanamide. We conclude that muscle autophagy is increased by ethanol exposure and contributes to sarcopenia.