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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Orthop. Oct 18, 2016; 7(10): 628-637
Published online Oct 18, 2016. doi: 10.5312/wjo.v7.i10.628
Skeletal muscle mitochondrial health and spinal cord injury
Laura C O’Brien, Ashraf S Gorgey
Laura C O’Brien, Ashraf S Gorgey, Spinal Cord Injury and Disorders Service, Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center, Richmond, VA 23249, United States
Laura C O’Brien, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298, United States
Ashraf S Gorgey, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23298, United States
Author contributions: O’Brien LC and Gorgey AS wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Ashraf S Gorgey, MPT, PhD, FACSM, Chief of Spinal Cord Injury Research, Spinal Cord Injury and Disorders Service, Hunter Holmes McGuire VA Medical Center, 1201 Broad Rock Blvd, Richmond, VA 23249, United States. ashraf.gorgey@va.gov
Telephone: +1-804-6755000 Fax: +1-804-6755223
Received: May 5, 2016
Peer-review started: May 9, 2016
First decision: June 13, 2016
Revised: June 18, 2016
Accepted: August 15, 2016
Article in press: August 16, 2016
Published online: October 18, 2016
Processing time: 159 Days and 12.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Mitochondria are the main source of cellular energy production and have decreased function in many disease states. After spinal cord injury (SCI) there is a dramatic deterioration of body composition including increased adipose tissue deposition, skeletal muscle atrophy and conversion from oxidative to glycolytic skeletal muscle fibers. These changes put persons with SCI at a high risk for developing cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. How skeletal muscle mitochondrial function is impacted after human SCI has yet to be determined. The current editorial will discuss the importance of studying skeletal muscle mitochondrial function after SCI.