10 weeks Endurance Running on Gene Expression of IL-1β, Mn-SOD and Caspase-3 in the Heart and Gastrocnemius of Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Journal of Exercise Nutrition & Biochemistry 2008;12(1):29-36.

Abstract

The present research was to investigate the effect of a long-term endurance exercise training on the expression of IL-1β, Mn-SOD and Caspase 3 in the heart and gastrocnemius of Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats (SHR). Twenty Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats and twenty SHRs (age, 5 weeks) were used and randomly divided into 4 groups; WKY Control (WC, n = 10), WKY exercise (WE, n = 10), SHR control (SC, n = 10) or SHR exercise (SE, n = 10). Endurance exercise was performed by a treadmill-running program (15 m/min, 0% grade, 40 mins/day, 5 days/week, 10 weeks). Total RNA was extracted from heart and gastrocnemius tissues using TRIzol method. After cDNA was synthesized, Gene expression of IL-1β, Mn-SOD and Caspase-3 were measured by Real-Time PCR, while systolic blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) were monitored by tail-cuff pressure measurement for the whole experimental period. Oneway repeated ANOVA was used and p value under 0.05 was considered as statistical significance. 10 weeks running significantly inhibited the increment of systolic blood pressure in SE. IL-1β gene expression of WC (0.98 ± 0.17) and WE (0.15 ± 0.01) was significantly higher than that of SC (0.04 ± 0.008) and SE (0.04 ± 0.007) in heart. Mn-SOD gene expression of WE (26.79 ± 2.09) was significantly increased compared to other groups in heart. Caspase-3 gene expression of WE (5.90 ± 0.73) was significantly higher than that of the others. Further, Caspase-3 of WC (3.18 ± 0.51) was significantly increased compared to that of SC (0.84 ± 0.15) and SE (1.12 ± 0.16). However, IL-1β, Mn-SOD and Caspase-3 gene expression of gastrocnemius were not significant in the all groups. In conclusion. 10 weeks endurance running had positive effect on the systolic pressure, but not on the gene expression of heart in SHRs. IL-1β, Mn-SOD and Caspase-3 gene expression of heart were might impaired by chronic high blood pressure. However, IL-1β, Mn- SOD and Caspase-3 gene expression of gastrocnemius might not be affected by chronic high blood pressure.

Key Words: Endurance exercise training, IL-1β, Mn-SOD and Caspase-3, Spontaneous Hypertensive Rat