Reductions in skeletal muscle mitochondrial mass are not restored following exercise training in patients with chronic kidney disease

Summary

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) exhibit reduced exercise capacity, poor physical function and symptoms of fatigue. The mechanisms that contribute to this are not clearly defined but may involve reductions in mitochondrial function, mass and biogenesis. Here we report on the effect of non-dialysis dependent CKD (NDD-CKD) on mitochondrial mass and basal expression of transcription factors involved in mitochondrial biogenesis compared to a healthy control cohort (HC). In addition, we sought to investigate the effect of a 12-week exercise-training programme on these aspects of mitochondrial dysfunction in a NDD-CKD cohort.For the comparison between NDD-CKD and HC populations, skeletal muscle biopsies were collected from the vastus lateralis (VL) of n=16 non-dialysis dependent CKD pa