Metabonomic study of the biochemical profiles of heterozygous myostatin knockout swine

Myostatin is a transforming growth factor-β family member that normally acts to limit skeletal muscle growth. Myostatin gene (MSTN) knockout (KO) mice show possible effects for the prevention or treatment of metabolic disorders such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. We applied chromatography and mass spectrometry based metabonomics to assess system-wide metabolic response of heterozygous MSTN KO (MSTN +/- ) swine. Most of the metabolic data for MSTN +/- swine were similar to the data for wild type (WT) control swine. There were, however, metabolic changes related to fatty acid metabolism, glucose utilization, lipid metabolism, as well as BCAA catabolism caused by monoallelic MSTN depletion.The statistical analyses suggested that: (1) most metabolic changes were not significant in MSTN +/- swine compared to WT swine; (2) only a few metabolic properties were significantly different between KO and WT swine, especially for lipid metabolism. Significantly, these minor changes were most evident in female KO swine and suggested differences in gender sensitivity to myostatin.