Effect of Five Weeks of High-Intensity Interval Training on the Expression of miR-23a and Atrogin-1 in Gastrocnemius Muscles of Diabetic Male Rats

One of the complications of diabetes is muscular atrophy. Considering the role of exercise in controlling diabetes complications, the aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of five weeks of high intensity interval training (HIIT) on miR-23a and Atrogin-1 genes expression in the gastrocnemius muscles of male diabetic rats.
For this purpose, diabetes was induced in 14 Wistar rats with an average weight of 260±10g by injection of Streptozotocin (50mg/kg). They were randomly divided into two groups, controls (n=7) and HIIT (n=7) group. The HIIT program included implementing four 3-minute sets at intensity of 85-90% VO2max and one-minute recovery between each set with intensity of 30 to 35% VO2max. Twenty-four hours after the last training session, animals were anesthetized, gastrocnemius muscles were removed and Mir-23a and Atrogin-1 genes expression was evaluated by quantitative REAL time PCR. Data were analyzed by using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and t-test with SPSS software, version 19 and Execle 2007 at a significance level of p≤0.05.
Analysis with independent t-test showed that the HIIT training caused a significant increase in expression of miR-23a and consequently significant decrease in expression of Atrogin-1 gene, compared to controls group.
Evidently high intensity interval training due to decrease of hyperglycemia, change in expression of miR-23a and Atragin-1 can be an effective intervention to reduce diabetes complications such as muscle atrophy.