The Effect of a Long Term Synbiotic Diet on Aging Mouse Skeletal Muscle Protein Levels

Previous studies have shown that skeletal muscle atrophy occurs in aging animals (humans and rodents). A treatment for prevention of skeletal muscle atrophy could include a synbiotic diet, yet there is little research in this area. We hypothesize that dietary supplementation of probiotics and prebiotics (i.e., a synbiotic diet) will aid in the prevention of skeletal muscle atrophy in aging mice. Probiotics are intestinal microorganisms that are beneficial to the host, while prebiotics are foods for the microorganisms. To test our hypothesis, total protein levels of various hindlimb skeletal muscles are being measured as an index of muscle strength and atrophy. Thirty albino male mice, ten months of age, were randomly assigned into three groups: baseline, sacrificed at time zero; control, fed control diet for 4 months; and synbiotic, fed synbiotic diet for 4 months. The control and synbiotic groups were sacrificed at 14 months of age. The gastrocnemius, tibialis anterior, and rectus femoris muscles were dissected from the hindlimbs. A bicinchoninic acid assay is being used to measure the total protein levels in each muscle. The study is currently in progress, but we expect to find higher skeletal muscle protein levels in the aging synbiotic (vs. control) diet group if indeed a synbiotic diet aids in the prevention of skeletal muscle atrophy in aging mice. This study sheds light on the ability of a synbiotic diet to offset the effects of aging.