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. We studied the effect of IR laser treatment on the proliferation, differentiation, cytoskeleton organization and proteome of C2C12 myoblasts. We found that laser treatment induced a decrease in cell proliferation rate without affecting cell viability. In addition IR laser treatment lead to remarkable changes in cell morphology accompanied by cytoskeleton rearrangement and expression of the early differentiation marker MyoD. The differential proteome analysis revealed the up-regulation and/or modulation of many proteins known to be involved in cell cycle regulation, cytoskeleton organization and differentiation.