Invited review: intracellular signaling in contracting skeletal muscle

Physical exercise is a significant stimulus for the regulation of multiple metabolic and transcriptional processes in skeletal muscle. For example, exercise increases skeletal muscle glucose uptake, and, after exercise, there are increases in the rates of both glucose uptake and glycogen synthesis. A single bout of exercise can also induce transient changes in skeletal muscle gene transcription and can alter rates of protein metabolism, both of which may be mechanisms for chronic adaptations to repeated bouts of exercise. A central issue in exercise biology is to elucidate the underlying molecular signaling mechanisms that regulate these important metabolic and transcriptional events in skeletal muscle. In this review, we summarize research from the past several years that has demonstrated that physical exercise can regulate multiple intracellular signaling cascades in skeletal muscle. It is now well established that physical exercise or muscle contractile activity can activate three of the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathways, including the extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 and 2, the c-Jun NH(2)-terminal kinase, and the p38. Exercise can also robustly increase activity of the AMP-activated protein kinase, as well as several additional molecules, including glycogen synthase kinase 3, Akt, and the p70 S6 kinase. A fundamental goal of signaling research is to determine the biological consequences of exercise-induced signaling through these molecules, and this review also provides an update of progress in this area.