---
title: 'Romain Bernasconi defended his doctoral thesis on muscle adaptation to creatine deficiency'
url: 'https://sysbio.taltech.ee/news/251203-romain-bernasconi-phd-thesis'
markdown: 'https://sysbio.taltech.ee/news/251203-romain-bernasconi-phd-thesis.md'
date: '2025-12-03'
description: 'Congratulations to Romain Bernasconi, who defended his doctoral thesis, Unravelling the Mechanisms of Energetics-Induced Fast-to-Slow Phenotypic Shift in Creatine-Deficient Mice, at TalTech on 3 December 2025. The creatine kinase system helps muscles maintain their energy supply during contraction.…'
taxonomy:
  tag:
    - thesis
    - PhD
    - 'creatine-deficient mice'
    - 'skeletal muscle'
    - AMPK
    - 'glycolytic muscle'
    - 'oxidative muscle'
---

# Romain Bernasconi defended his doctoral thesis on muscle adaptation to creatine deficiency

Congratulations to Romain Bernasconi, who defended his doctoral thesis, *Unravelling the Mechanisms of Energetics-Induced Fast-to-Slow Phenotypic Shift in Creatine-Deficient Mice*, at TalTech on 3 December 2025.

The creatine kinase system helps muscles maintain their energy supply during contraction. When this system is disrupted, muscles can become smaller and change from fast, high-force fibres to slower, more fatigue-resistant fibres. Romain's thesis investigated how this adaptation differs between fast and slow skeletal muscles in two mouse models of creatine deficiency.

The work showed that mice lacking arginine:glycine amidinotransferase (AGAT) had severe atrophy and a fast-to-slow shift in fast muscle, associated with high activity of the energy sensor AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). In contrast, mice lacking guanidinoacetate N-methyltransferase (GAMT) showed only subtle changes. The findings suggest that guanidinoacetate, which can partly substitute for creatine in GAMT-deficient mice, may prevent some energy-sensing responses and muscle adaptations.

Romain was supervised by Rikke Birkedal and co-supervised by Marko Vendelin.

- [Thesis details](https://sysbio.taltech.ee/theses/romain-bernasconi)
- [Thesis in TalTech Digikogu](https://digikogu.taltech.ee/en/Item/fbb5b632-4e79-49ac-a0b7-e81a44703974)

---

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