Surface Electrical Impedance Myography Detects Skeletal Muscle Atrophy in Aged Wildtype Zebrafish and Aged gpr27 Knockout Zebrafish

Throughout a vertebrate organism’s lifespan, skeletal muscle mass and function progressively decline. This age-related condition is termed sarcopenia. In humans, sarcopenia associated with risk of falling, cardiovascular disease, all-cause mortality. As the world population ages, projected to reach 2 billion older adults worldwide in 2050, economic burden on healthcare system also increase considerably. Currently, there are no pharmacological treatments for sarcopenia, given long-term nature aging studies, high-throughput chemical screens impractical mammalian models. Zebrafish promising, up-and-coming model field that could fill this gap. Here, we developed surface electrical impedance myography (sEIM) platform assess health, quantitatively noninvasively, adult zebrafish (young, aged, genetic mutant animals). aged (~85% lifespan) as compared young (~20% lifespan), sEIM parameters (2 kHz phase angle, reactance, resistance) robustly detected atrophy (p < 0.000001, q = 0.000002; p 0.000004, 0.000006; 0.000867, 0.000683, respectively). Moreover, these same measurements exhibited strong correlations an established morphometric parameter (myofiber cross-sectional area), determined by histological-based analysis (r 0.831, × 10−12; r 0.6959, 10−8; 0.7220; 4 10−9, Finally, deletion gpr27, orphan G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR), exacerbated animals, evidenced both histology. conclusion, data here show EIM techniques can effectively discriminate between healthy sarcopenic well advanced atrophied gpr27 KO animals. studies how values correlate cell size across making it potentially possible utilize “virtual biopsy” noninvasively myofiber atrophy, valuable measure gerontology research.