Effect of IR laser on myoblasts: a proteomic study

Lasertherapy is used in physical medicine and rehabilitation to accelerate muscle recovery and in sports medicine to prevent damages produced by metabolic disturbances and inflammatory reactions after heavy exercise. The aim of this research was to get insights on possible benefits deriving from the application of an advanced IR laser system to counteract deficits of muscle energy metabolism and stimulate the recovery of the hypotrophic tissue. The laser source used was a Multiwave-Locked-System (MLS; e: 808 nm and 904 nm). We studied the effect of MLS treatment on the proteome of C2C12 myoblasts. Extracted proteins from MLS-treated and non-treated cells were resolved by 2-DE. About 120 significantly and consistently up or down regulated protein spots with fold changes greater than 1.5 (average normalised volumes) were determined. Of these spots, 89 were up-regulated and 32 down-regulated. About ninety spots, corresponding to major protein variations, were cut from gels, destained, digested with trypsin and subjected to peptide mass fingerprinting followed by database searching. MALDI-TOF MS results allowed the unambiguous protein identification of 52 protein variations, corresponding to 41 proteins. The differentially expressed proteins were subjected to functional pathway analysis using DAVID database for better understanding the biological context of the identified proteins and their participation in various physiological processes. Concerning cellular functions and processes, the identified proteins were distributed into categories. The most dominant function that the identified proteins were involved in was “protein metabolism and modification”, followed by “cell structure and motility”, “carbohydrate metabolism”, and “muscle contraction”.