Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, acute lung injury, and critical care illness may develop hypercapnia. Many of these patients often have muscle dysfunction which increases morbidity and impairs their quality of life. Here, we investigated whether hypercapnia leads to skeletal muscle atrophy. Mice exposed to high CO2 had decreased skeletal muscle wet weight, fiber diameter, and strength. Cultured myotubes exposed to high CO2 had reduced fiber diameter, protein/DNA ratios, and anabolic capacity. High CO2 induced the expression of MuRF1 in vivo and in vitro, whereas MuRF1(-/-) mice exposed to high CO2 did not develop muscle atrophy. AMP-activated kinase (AMPK), a metabolic sensor, was activated in myotubes exposed to high CO2, and loss-of-function studies showed that the AMPKα2 isoform is necessary for muscle-specific ring finger protein 1 (MuRF1) up-regulation and myofiber size reduction. High CO2 induced AMPKα2 activation, triggering the phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of FoxO3a, and leading to an increase in MuRF1 expression and myotube atrophy. Accordingly, we provide evidence that high CO2 activates skeletal muscle atrophy via AMPKα2-FoxO3a-MuRF1, which is of biological and potentially clinical significance in patients with lung diseases and hypercapnia.

This work was supported in part by National Institutes of Health Grants CA060553 (to the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center Cores: Center for Advanced Microscopy Center, Genomics Core, and Mouse Phenotyping and Histology Laboratory), HL-85534, HL-71643, and HL-T32–76139. This work was also supported by Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Respiratorias (CIBERES) and Grants FIS 11/02029 and FIS 12/02534 (Instituto de Salud Carlos III), Spain and SAF- 2011-26908 from Ministry of Competitiveness, Spain