Integrated Single-Fiber Multi-Omics Links an Inflammatory-Associated Myofiber State to Altered Myosin Dynamics in Patients with ICU-acquired weakness

Abstract

Skeletal muscle dysfunction is a pervasive complication of critical illness that worsens survival and recovery, yet remains poorly explained by current clinical or molecular markers. To directly connect disease-associated molecular states to the contractile machinery, this study combined sequential functional, transcriptomic, and proteomic profiling of the same single human skeletal myofibers from critically ill patients in the intensive care unit with acquired weakness (ICU-AW) and controls. Despite marked donor-level heterogeneity, integrated analysis revealed a subtle yet conserved myofiber state enriched in ICU-AW, characterized by inflammatory and chemotactic gene programs, intracellular structural remodeling, and bioenergetic adaptation. Nineteen features were significantly altered at both RNA and protein levels from the same myofiber, linking an inflammatory transcriptional landscape to a proteomic shift toward mitochondrial and translational machinery and away from membrane-associated signaling. Functionally, fibers in this state displayed selectively disrupted myosin dynamics, evidenced by prolonged ATP turnover time of myosin heads in their super-relaxed conformation, implicating altered myosin energetics as a contributor to muscle dysfunction. These findings define a discrete, disease-associated myofiber state and establish an integrative single-fiber framework for connecting multi-omic heterogeneity to molecular motor function in complex human disease. Graphical AbstractSingle-fiber multi-omic and functional analysis reveals a stress-adapted myofiber state in ICU-AW. Specifically, for the present study, myofibers from ICU-AW donors and control donors were isolated and functionally profiled for myosin dynamics before being split for simultaneous transcriptomic and proteomic analysis. Integrated analysis then identified a reproducible fiber phenotype enriched in ICU-AW, characterized by inflammatory transcriptional signatures coordinated with mitochondrial proteomic remodeling and altered myosin super-relaxed state energetics. O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=95 SRC="FIGDIR/small/706099v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (23K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@95715forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1462ff8org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@f74996org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@10055ec_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG