Maslinic Acid Promotes Hypertrophy Induced by Functional Overload in Mouse Skeletal Muscle

Nutritional supplements are sometimes important for athletes to improve their sports performance and maintain their condition. Maslinic acid (MA) is a type of compound with a pentacyclic triterpene structure extracted from olives, and has a strong anti-inflammatory effect and improves metabolic function. This study aimed to investigate the effects of MA on muscle hypertrophy by functional overload using an animal model. Mice plantaris muscles were overloaded by synergist ablation surgery with/without MA and they were sampled at 4, 7, and 14 d after the operation. We demonstrated that MA significantly increased plantaris' cross-sectional area and activated the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling compared with the non-supplemented group (main effect of MA, p<0.05). In addition, MA also significantly reduced catabolic proteins compared with the non-supplemented group. MA supplementation increased muscle fiber size and promoted muscle hypertrophy via mTOR signaling. Our results indicate that MA supplementation may be useful for promoting hypertrophy of skeletal muscle.