Assessing the impact of boldine on the gastrocnemius using multiomics profiling at 7 and 28 days post-complete spinal cord injury in young male mice

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in rapid muscle loss. Exogenous molecular interventions to slow muscle atrophy after SCI have been relatively ineffective and require the search for novel therapeutic targets. Connexin hemichannels (CxHCs) allow nonselective passage of small molecules into and out of the cell. Boldine, a CxHC-inhibiting aporphine found in the boldo tree (Peumus boldus), has shown promising preclinical results in slowing atrophy during sepsis and restoring muscle function in dysferlinopathy. We administered 50 mg/kg/day of boldine to spinal cord transected mice beginning 3 days post-injury. Tissue was collected 7 and 28 days post-SCI and the gastrocnemius was used for multiomics profiling. Boldine did not prevent body or muscle mass loss but attenuated SCI-induced changes in the abundance of the amino acids proline, phenylalanine, leucine and isoleucine, as well as glucose, 7 days post-SCI. SCI resulted in the differential expression of ∼7,700 and ∼2,000 genes at 7 and 28 days, respectively, compared with Sham controls. Pathway enrichment of these genes highlighted ribosome biogenesis at 7 days and translation and oxidative phosphorylation at both timepoints. Boldine altered the expression of ∼150 genes at 7 days and ∼110 genes at 28 days post-SCI. Pathway enrichment of these genes indicated a potential role for boldine in suppressing protein ubiquitination and degradation at the 7-day timepoint. Methylation analyses showed minimal differences between groups. Taken together, boldine is not an efficacious therapy to preserve body and muscle mass after complete SCI, though it attenuated some SCI-induced changes across the metabolome and transcriptome.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This is the first study to describe the multiome of skeletal muscle paralyzed by a spinal cord injury (SCI) in mice across the acute and subacute timeframe after injury. We show large-scale changes in the metabolome and transcriptome at 7 days post-injury compared with 28 days. Furthermore, we show that the alkaloid boldine was able to prevent SCI-induced changes in muscle glucose and free amino acid levels at 7 days, but not 28 days, after SCI.