3,5-Diiodo-l-thyronine rapidly enhances mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation rate and thermogenesis in rat skeletal muscle: AMP-activated protein kinase involvement

Triiodothyronine regulates energy metabolism and thermogenesis. Among triiodothyronine derivatives, 3,5-diiodo-l-thyronine (T2) has been shown to exert marked effects on energy metabolism by acting mainly at the mitochondrial level. Here we investigated the capacity of T2 to affect both skeletal muscle mitochondrial substrate oxidation and thermogenesis within 1 h after its injection into hypothyroid rats. Administration of T2 induced an increase in mitochondrial oxidation when palmitoyl-CoA (+104%), palmitoylcarnitine (+80%), or succinate (+30%) was used as substrate, but it had no effect when pyruvate was used. T2 was able to 1) activate the AMPK-ACC-malonyl-CoA metabolic signaling pathway known to direct lipid partitioning toward oxidation and 2) increase the importing of fatty acids into the mitochondrion. These results suggest that T2 stimulates mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation by activating several metabolic pathways, such as the fatty acid import/β-oxidation cycle/FADH2-linked respiratory pathway...