Skeletal muscle lipid metabolism: A frontier for new insights into fuel homeostasis

Although skeletal muscle is recognized as a primary site of lipid utilization, the study of muscle bioenergetics has focused mainly on carbohydrate, and consequently our understanding of the variables that regulate muscle lipid metabolism is comparably poor. This review focuses on the significance of muscle lipid metabolism in regulating whole-body energy homeostasis. Multiple pathways involved in controlling muscle lipid biochemistry are discussed, and comparisons with other tissues are described. Considerable evidence indicates that muscle lipid biochemistry is altered in disease states, and a number of metabolic disorders may be explained by dysregulation of muscle lipid metabolism. An understanding of the factors accounting for dysregulated muscle metabolism is a necessity in light of the increase in the incidence of disease syndromes such as obesity and diabetes, which collectively account for a high incidence of morbidity and mortality in the western society. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to describe the biochemical events involved in the regulation and dysregulation of skeletal muscle lipid metabolism and to encourage new investigation in muscle lipid research.