This explanation is strengthened by the data showing that bicalutamide treatment for 24 h markedly decreased PSA expression. Bicalutamide treatment, on the other hand, may have a much quicker effect on AR activity. However, the difference in cell response to bicalutamide or glucose deprivation should be taken into account when interpreting the data. The data suggest that inhibition of AR activity may have a protective effect against glucose deprivation. Both glucose deprivation and bicalutamide were able to induce apoptotic cell death, although bicalutamide was less effective (Figure 5B). This time point was chosen because the growth inhibitory effect of glucose deprivation was apparent on day three, while the effect of bicalutamide may already be subsiding after day three. However, a longer exposure to bicalutamide actually restored growth by day five. Since mTOR is sensitive to nutrient levels, its activity would be diminished as a result of nutrient deprivation. Chen et al. (18) demonstrated that increased AR protein may amplify the output from residual ligand and alter the response to antagonist. Wang et al. (7) found that rapamycin inhibition of mTORC1 increases AR transcriptional activity via an Akt-dependent pathway downstream of mTORC2. The role of testosterone in glucose deprivation-induced apoptosis was therefore studied. Another experiment with the same protocol was carried out, with the exception that the trypan blue method was used to asses the percentage of dead cells (Figure 6B). To test this hypothesis, an adjuvant bicalutamide protocol was designed in which cells were subjected first to glucose deprivation for three days, followed by bicalutamide treatment for another day. On the other hand, recent papers report contradicting results in IGF-I levels and activity of Akt/mTOR/p70S6K1 in aged muscles. Hence, glucocorticoids may regulate mTOR by modulating the level of both BCAT2 and myostatin to regulate catabolism in skeletal muscle. Glucocorticoids also elicit muscle atrophy via controlling transcription of myostatin, an inhibitory regulator of muscle growth, which we discussed in the previous section. Notably, the circulating levels of glucocorticoids are increased under many pathological conditions which are accompanied by muscle atrophy such as cachexia, starvation, sepsis, metabolic acidosis, and severe insulinopenia (Braun and Marks, 2015). Glucocorticoids are some of the most fundamental regulators of energy homeostasis and adjust the metabolism of carbohydrates, fat, and protein in skeletal muscle (Munck et al., 1984). Hence, myostatin may regulate protein synthesis in both an mTOR-dependent and an mTOR-independent manner; it controls the translation through Akt/mTORC1/p70S6K1/S6 signaling and, at the same time, it directly acts on unknown regulators of translation. In this study, low, medium and high doses of rapamycin have the effect of reversing Testosterone-induced SHR myocardial hypertrophy after OVX under the premise of the same administration method, but the high-dose administration group has the best effect. Therefore, this study provides evidence that mTOR/S6K1/4EBP1/eIF4E signaling pathway may be necessary for the mechanism of the Testosterone-induced OVX SHR myocardial hypertrophy response. Our results showed that the myocardial hypertrophy of Testosterone-mediated OVX SHR was accompanied by a significant increase in mTOR and downstream targets S6K1, 4EBP1 and eIF4E protein levels. However, testosterone intervention induced increased blood pressure (mean increase of 28 mmHg) and cardiac hypertrophy had a greater effect. The characteristics of testosterone synthesis and metabolism involve increased protein synthesis, which is essential for normal and hypertrophic growth of cardiomyocytes (Carbajal-García et al. 2020, Troncoso et al. 2021). As for the protein and mRNA expression levels of mTOR, S6K1 and 4EBP1 in myocardial tissue, vehicle group presented a significant increase in relation to the other groups (Fig. 6A, B, C, D, E, F and G). The protein expression levels of mTOR, S6K1, 4EBP1 and eIF4E were augmented in myocardial tissue of OVX + E + T group compared to the other four groups (Fig. 3D, E, F, G and H). In this context, future studies of mTOR signaling as a possible therapeutic target using non-coding RNAs are warranted. Hence, the hypertrophic response by mTOR activation is important for overall muscle maintenance in aged muscle. Related to this, reduced mTOR signaling has been shown to regulate longevity in human and model organisms (Powers et al., 2006; Bjedov et al., 2010; Robida-Stubbs et al., 2012; Passtoors et al., 2013) and reduce age-related pathologies (Johnson et al., 2013a). Sarcopenia has been defined as an age-related continuous decline in muscle mass, quality, and strength (Sakuma et al., 2014). No differences in blood pressure levels were found between intact and ovariectomized Sprague–Dawley rats aged 10–12 weeks (Xue et al. 2009). However, the growth of the heart in vivo is a more complicated process caused by a combination of many factors. The activation of S6K1 and 4EBP1 can alter the protein translation dynamics and accelerate the translation process (Patra et al. 2021). These findings indicate that T plays an important role in elevated blood pressure and cardiac hypertrophy in ovariectomized SHR. MHC, myosin heavy chain; MMP, matrix metalloproteinase; TIMP, the tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase. (B, C, D, and E) mRNA expression of ANP, β-MHC, MMP-9 and TIMP-1 by real-time RT-PCR. The area of cardiomyocytes in vehicle group was increased compared with that in the other four groups. TSC2, on the other hand, was increased by AR knockdown in both the low and high testosterone conditions. It is possible that the stimulation of mTOR activity might be mediated by changes in the expression of these negative regulators. The observation suggests that AR signaling may not be the only factor controlling mTOR activity. In both the low and high testosterone conditions, AR knockdown decreased the activity of mTOR. The effect of AR knockdown on mTOR activity, as assessed by phosphorylation changes of mTOR substrates, is shown in Figure 2B. The phosphorylation of mTOR substrates, which include p70S6K, S6 and 4EBP-1, is used widely as an indicator of mTOR activity. LNCaP cells were treated with 0.5 or 1 μM bicalutamide for 15 or 24 h. Thus, the attempt to change IGF-I levels in aged muscle for sarcopenia warrants further investigations These results suggested that both mTORC1 and myostatin-Smad2 signaling negatively regulate each other. MTOR regulation by myostatin has sophisticated the molecular mechanism of myostatin signaling. One of the potential IGFR-independent mTOR regulators in skeletal muscle is phosphatidic acid (PA). Maintenance of skeletal muscle mass is regulated by the balance between anabolic and catabolic processes. Recently, a novel polypeptide encoded by the long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) LINC00961 was shown to regulate mTOR activation and muscle regeneration (Matsumoto et al., 2017), implying crosstalk between mTOR and non-coding RNAs in skeletal muscle. Recent studies suggest an additional role of mTOR in skeletal muscle related to the regulation of non-coding RNAs. In addition, the deletion of S6K1, an mTORC1 downstream target, in muscle increases AMP/ATP level and activates AMPK, resulting in energy stress and muscle cell atrophy (Aguilar et al., 2007). However, the soleus and EDL of RAmKO muscle had slower myosin heavy chain (slMHC)-positive fibers, indicating that RAmKO muscle contained more structurally slow-twitch, oxidative skeletal muscle fibers. MTORC1 deficiency in muscle significantly reduces the expression of genes in mitochondria biogenesis, such as proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator-1 alpha (PGC1α), myoglobin, PPARγ, and cytochrome C oxidase IV (COXIV). MTOR knockout muscle also undergoes metabolic changes, resulting in glycogen accumulation due to increased glycogen synthesis and glucose uptake together with reduced glycogen breakdown through glycogenolysis and the glycolytic and oxidative pathways.