Myeloid mineralocorticoid receptors contribute to skeletal muscle repair in muscular dystrophy and acute muscle injury

Suppressing mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) activity with MR antagonists is therapeutic for chronic skeletal muscle pathology in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) mouse models. Although mechanisms underlying clinical MR antagonist efficacy for DMD cardiomyopathy and other cardiac diseases are defined, mechanisms in skeletal muscles are not fully elucidated. Myofiber MR knockout improves skeletal muscle force and a subset of dystrophic pathology. However, MR signaling in myeloid cells is known to be a major contributor to cardiac efficacy. To define contributions of myeloid MR in skeletal muscle function and disease, we performed parallel assessments of muscle pathology, cytokine levels, and myeloid cell populations resulting from myeloid MR genetic knockout in muscular dystrophy and acute muscle injury. Myeloid MR knockout led to lower levels of C-C motif chemokine receptor 2 (CCR2)-expressing macrophages, resulting in sustained myofiber damage after acute injury of normal muscle. In acute injury, myeloid MR knockout also led to increased local muscle levels of the enzyme that produces the endogenous MR agonist aldosterone, further supporting important contributions of MR signaling in normal muscle repair. In muscular dystrophy, myeloid MR knockout altered cytokine levels differentially between quadriceps and diaphragm muscles, which contain different myeloid populations. Myeloid MR knockout led to higher levels of fibrosis in dystrophic diaphragm. These results support important contributions of myeloid MR signaling to skeletal muscle repair in acute and chronic injuries and highlight the useful information gained from cell-specific genetic knockouts to delineate mechanisms of pharmacological efficacy.