Low dose resveratrol promotes hypertrophy in wildtype skeletal muscle and reduces damage in skeletal muscle of exercised mdx mice

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive and fatal neuromuscular disorder for which there is no treatment. Therapies to restore dystrophin deficiency are not ready for clinical use and long-term efficiency is yet to be established. Therefore, there is a need to develop alternative strategies to treat DMD. Resveratrol is a nutraceutical with anti-inflammatory properties and previous studies have shown that high doses can benefit mdx mice. We treated 4-week-old mdx and wildtype mice with low-dose resveratrol (5mg/kg bodyweight/day) for 15 weeks. A voluntary exercise protocol was added to test if low dose resveratrol could reduce exercise-induced damage. We showed that resveratrol promoted skeletal muscle hypertrophy in the wildtype mice. There was no change in markers of pathology in the mdx mice; however, the low-dose resveratrol reduced exercised induced damage. Gene expression of immune cell markers such as CD86, CD163 and PCNA was reduced; however signalling targets associated with resveratrol’s mechanism of action of action including SIRT1 and NF-κB were unchanged. In conclusion, low-dose resveratrol was not effective in reducing disease pathology; however, its ability to promote hypertrophy in wildtype skeletal muscle could have direct applications to the livestock industry or in sports medicine.