Reduced mechanical loading during bedrest, spaceflight, and casting, causes rapid morphological changes in skeletal muscle: fiber atrophy and reduction of slow-twitch fibers. An emerging signaling event in response to unloading is the translocation of neuronal nitric oxide synthase from the sarcolemma to the cytosol. Dr. John Lawler, Huffines Affiliate and Director of the Redox Biology and Cell Signaling Laboratory, recently published in the American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. His publication titled "EUK-134 ameliorates nNOSµ translocation and skeletal muscle fiber atrophy during short-term mechanical unloading" looked at EUK-134, a cell-permeable mimetic of superoxide dismutase and catalase, to test the role of redox signaling in nNOSµ translocation and muscle fiber atrophy as a result of short-term (54 h) hindlimb unloading. Redox signaling may serve as a biological switch for nNOS to initiate morphological changes in skeletal muscle fibers.

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