Quadriceps muscle weakness and wasting are common comorbidities in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Micro-RNA expression upregulation may favor muscle mass growth and differentiation. We hypothesized that the profile of muscle-enriched micro-RNAs in cultured myotubes differs between patients with COPD of a wide range of body composition and healthy controls and that expression levels of those micro-RNAs from patients with COPD and controls differ between in vivo and in vitro conditions. Twenty-nine patients with COPD [ n = 15 with muscle wasting and fat-free mass index (FFMI) 15 kg/m2 and n = 14 with normal body composition and FFMI 18 kg/m2] and 10 healthy controls (FFMI 19 kg/m2) were consecutively recruited. Biopsies from the vastus lateralis muscle were obtained in all study subjects. A fragment of each biopsy was used to obtain primary cultures, in which muscle cells were first proliferated to be then differentiated into actual myotubes. In both sets of experiments (in vivo biopsies and in vitro myotubes) the following muscle-enriched micro-RNAs from all the study subjects were analyzed using quantitative real-time PCR amplification: micro-RNA (miR)-1, miR-133a, miR-206, miR-486, miR-29b, miR-27a, and miR-181a. Whereas the expression of miR-1, miR-206, miR-486, and miR-29b was upregulated in the muscle biopsies of patients with COPD compared with those of healthy controls, levels of none of the studied micro-RNAs in the myotubes (primary cultured cells) significantly differed between patients with COPD and the controls. We conclude from these findings that environmental factors (blood flow, muscle metabolism, and inflammation) taking place in vivo (biopsies) in muscles may account for the differences observed in micro-RNA expression between patients with COPD and controls. In the myotubes, however, the expression of the same micro-RNAs did not differ between the study subjects as such environmental factors were not present. These findings suggest that therapeutic strategies should rather target environmental factors in COPD muscle wasting as the profile of micro-RNA expression in myotubes was similar in patients to that observed in the healthy controls. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Environmental factors taking place in vivo (biopsies) in the muscles may explain differences observed in micro-RNA expression between patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and controls. In the myotubes, however, the expression of the same micro-RNAs did not differ between the study subjects as such environmental factors were not present. These findings suggest that therapeutic strategies should rather target environmental factors in COPD muscle wasting and cachexia as micro-RNA expression profile in myotubes was similar between patients and controls.

This study was supported by Centro de Investigación en Red de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria (FIS) 14/00713 [Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER)], FIS 18/00075 (FEDER), Grant SAF2014-54371, Sociedad Española de Neumología y Cirugía Torácica (SEPAR) 2016, SEPAR 2018, Fundació Catalana de Pneumologia 2016, and an unrestricted grant from Menarini SA 2018 (Spain). E. Barreiro was a recipient of the European Respiratory Society COPD Research Award 2008.