Meeting Abstract
Variation in locomotor performance and metabolism is common in animals; however, the underlying causes driving this variation have received little attention. Though, previous studies have shown changes in enzyme activity and metabolic gene expression in exercised versus non-exercised skeletal muscle, no study has examined the plasticity in enzyme activity and gene expression in skeletal muscle following different types of locomotor activity in non-human animals. Snakes are excellent candidates to use to examine these questions because of the various types of locomotor modes they utilize and because they possess metabolic proteins unique among vertebrates that are involved in aerobic respiration and which permit them to endure large metabolic fluctuations. For this study, biopsies of skeletal muscle were performed on cornsnakes (Pantherophis guttatus) following 10 min of movement via one of three modes of limbless locomotion (lateral undulation, concertina, arboreal) to 1) extract RNA for sequencing and quantify gene expression and 2) to examine citrate synthase activity. Sequences were assembled using de-novo and genome-guided methods and a consensus assembly was used to annotate and assess differential gene expression. More genes were found to be up- or down-regulated following lateral undulatory and concertina movements compared to arboreal movement. We found that citrate synthase activities did not differ among locomotor treatments but was higher than snakes that did not move. Future work will attempt to identify the functions of up- and down-regulated genes and examine the activities of other metabolic enzymes.
