Peripheral blood mononuclear cells do not reflect skeletal muscle mitochondrial function or adaptation to high-intensity interval training in healthy young men

Measurement of skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiration requires invasive biopsy to obtain a muscle sample. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) mitochondrial protein content appears to reflect training status in young men; however, no studies have investigated whether there are training-induced changes in PBMC mitochondrial respiration. Therefore, we determined whether PBMC mitochondrial respiration could be used as a marker of skeletal muscle mitochondrial respiration in young healthy men and whether PBMC mitochondrial respiration responds to short-term training. Skeletal muscle and PBMC samples from 10 healthy young (18-35 yr) male participants were taken before and after a 2-wk high-intensity interval training protocol. High-resolution respirometry was used to determine mitochondrial respiration from muscle and PBMCs, and Western blotting and quantitative PCR were used to assess mitochondrial biogenesis in PBMCs. PBMC mitochondrial respiration was not correlated with muscle mitochondrial respiration at baseline (R-2 = 0.012-0.364. P > 0.05). While muscle mitochondrial respiration increased in response to training (32.1-61.5%, P < 0.05), PBMC respiration was not affected by training. Consequently. PBMCs did not predict training effect on muscle mitochondrial respiration (R-2 = 0.024-0.283, P > 0.05). Similarly, gene and protein markers of mitochondrial biogenesis did not increase in PBMCs following training. This suggests PBMC mitochondrial function does not reflect that of skeletal muscle and does not increase following short-term high-intensity training. PBMCs are therefore not a suitable biomarker for muscle mitochondrial function in young healthy men. It may be useful to study PBMC mitochondrial function as a biomarker of muscle mitochondrial function in pathological populations with different respiration capacities. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Research in primates has suggested that peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) may provide a less-invasive alternative to a muscle biopsy for measuring muscle mitochondrial function. Furthermore, trained individuals appear to have greater mitochondrial content in PBMCs. Here we show that in healthy young men, PBMCs do not reflect skeletal muscle mitochondrial function and do not adapt in response to a training intervention that increases muscle mitochondrial function, suggesting PBMCs are a poor marker of muscle mitochondrial function in humans.