Myosin Content of Individual Human Muscle Fibers Isolated by Laser Capture Microdissection

Muscle fiber composition correlates with insulin resistance, and exercise training can increase slow-twitch (type I) fibers and, thereby, mitigate diabetes risk. Human skeletal muscle is made up of three distinct fiber types, but muscle contains many more isoforms of myosin heavy and light chains, which are coded by 15 and 11 different genes, respectively. Laser capture microdissection techniques allow assessment of mRNA and protein content in individual fibers. We found that specific human fiber types contain different mixtures of myosin heavy and light chains. Fast-twitch (type IIx) fibers consistently contained myosin heavy chains 1, 2, and 4 and myosin light chain 1. Type I fibers always contained myosin heavy chains 6 and 7 (MYH6 and MYH7) and myosin light chain 3 (MYL3), whereas MYH6, MYH7, and MYL3 were nearly absent from type IIx fibers. In contrast to cardiomyocytes, where MYH6 (also known as α-myosin heavy chain) is seen solely in fast-twitch cells, only slow-twitch fibers of skeletal muscle contained MYH6. Classical fast myosin heavy chains (MHC1, MHC2, and MHC4) were present in variable proportions in all fiber types, but significant MYH6 and MYH7 expression indicated slow-twitch phenotype, and the absence of these two isoforms determined a fast-twitch phenotype. The mixed myosin heavy and light chain content of type IIa fibers was consistent with its role as a transition between fast and slow phenotypes. These new observations suggest that the presence or absence of MYH6 and MYH7 proteins dictates the slow- or fast-twitch phenotype in skeletal muscle. The technical challenges of human skeletal muscle fiber type identification have evolved over the past three decades (8). The typical normal adult has roughly equal amounts of slow- and fast-twitch fibers, designated type I and II fibers. In addition, a variable portion of the type II fibers is mixed, containing both fast- and slow-twitch fiber markers, called type IIa fibers, whereas type II fibers that contain only the fast-twitch phenotype are designated type IIx in humans. Exercise training can cause modest shifts in fiber composition from one of these types to a contiguous type, with the relationship being type I to IIa to IIx or type IIx to IIa to I. The tail end of each myosin heavy chain is attached to the tail of another myosin heavy chain, and each of these forms a complex with two myosin light chains. Many heavy and light chain complexes are intertwined to form the thick filaments of each sarcomere. Thin filaments are composed of actin, troponin, and tropomyosin. The myosin heavy chains contain ATPase, which is essential for shortening of the contractile apparatus in the sarcomere, resulting in muscle-generated movement of a body part. The pH optimum of the ATPase has been classically the histochemical technique for identifying fast, slow, and mixed fibers. However, for more than a decade, monoclonal antibodies that correlated with the ATPase designation of fast, slow, and mixed fibers by bright-field or immunohistochemical methods have been used (2). The widely used fast and slow myosin monoclonal antibodies were obtained from mice immunized with only partially purified human skeletal muscle myosin antigens. More recently, antibodies that were raised against specific individual myosin heavy and light chain proteins became commercially available. The 15 human genes that code myosin heavy chains are designated MYH1, MYH2, MYH3, MYH4, MYH6, MYH7, MYH7B, MYH8, MYH9, MYH10, MYH11, MYH12, MYH13, MYH14, MYH15, and MYH16 (17). MYH9, MYH10, and MYH11 are expressed primarily in smooth muscle. At least eight separate genes that code myosin light chains, MYL1, MYL2, MYL3, MYL4, MYL5, MYL6, MYL6B, and MYLPF, have been identified, and at least three of these have a second isoform (3). Our initial investigation of the expression of myosin heavy and light chains using laser capture microdissection (LCM) to obtain specific fiber type samples from human vastus lateralis biopsies yielded some unexpected results. These observations led us to question which isoforms of myosin heavy and light chains are actually characteristic of “fast” or “slow” fibers in human skeletal muscle. We used immunoblots, mass spectroscopic (MS) proteomics, and next-generation sequencing of muscle homogenates and of LCM-generated samples of individual fiber types from normal control subjects and subjects with extremely different muscle fiber composition to approach this question by evaluating muscle specimens from subjects with diverse and extremely different fiber compositions. The hypothesis that drove these studies was that fibers of each type would have consistent myosin heavy and light chains that are characteristic of the fiber type. This is the first report that the abundance of different myosin heavy and light chains corresponds to different muscle fiber types