Prolonged environment-induced hyperthermia alters autophagy in oxidative skeletal muscle in Sus scrofa

Prolonged heat stress represents a continuing threat to human health and agricultural production. Despite the broad, negative impact of prolonged hyperthermia little is known about underlying pathological mechanisms leading to negative health outcomes, which has limited the development of etiological interventions and left clinicians and producers with only cooling and rehydration strategies. The purpose of this investigation was to determine the extent to which prolonged environment-induced hyperthermia altered autophagy in oxidative skeletal muscle in a large animal model, serving the dual purpose of accurately modeling human physiology as well as agricultural production. We hypothesized that prolonged hyperthermia would induce autophagy in skeletal muscle, independent of the accompanying caloric restriction. To test this hypothesis pigs were treated as follows: thermoneutral (20 °C), heat stress (35 °C), or were held under thermoneutral conditions but pair-fed to the heat stress group for seven days. Upon euthanasia the red portion of the semitendinosus was collected. We found that prolonged hyperthermic exposure increased oxidative stress without a corresponding change in antioxidant enzyme activities. Hyperthermia prevented initiation of autophagy despite increased markers of nucleation, elongation and autophagosome formation. However, p62 relative protein abundance, which is inversely correlated with autophagic degradation, was strongly increased suggesting suppressed degradation of autophagosomes. Markers of mitophagy and mitochondrial abundance were largely similar between groups. These data indicate that faulty autophagy plays a key role in hyperthermic muscle dysfunction.