Impact of Vitamine D depletion and repletion on rat skeletal muscle. Rattus norvegicus

15 months Old Wistar Rat were submitted to 3 differents diets: control, without vitamin D and without vitamin D followed by a supplementation in vitamin D. At sacrifice, skeletal muscle were recovered, quickly frozen in liquid nitrogen. RNA profiling by microarrays was performed. Overall design: The aim of this study was to examine the effects of vitamin D deficiency on muscle mitochondrial oxidative function in old sarcopenic rats. We hypothesized that suboptimal mitochondrial function contributes to the myopathy in vitamin D-deficient older individuals. 15-month-old Wistar rats were fed a vitamin D-deficient diet (VDD group) or a control diet (1000UI/Kg vit D) for 9 months (n=7-9/group) or a vitamin D-deficient diet followed by supplementation. Our results indicated a link between vitamin D status, muscle mitochondrial oxidative capacities, whole-body energy expenditure and change in body composition in old rats.