Effect of 12- weeks aerobic training on some indices of skeletal muscle apoptosis in male rats

Apoptosis in skeletal muscle plays an important role in tissue dysfunction disease such as muscle atrophy. Current evidence suggests that exercise trainings may alter apoptosis-related signaling in skeletal muscle. Therefore, the present study was investigated the effect of 12 weeks of aerobic training on some indices of skeletal muscle apoptosis in rats.
This study was conducted as a two-group experimental design on 20 randomly selected three month old male rats. Then divided them into two groups of training group (n=10) and control group (n=10). Rats in training group participated in 12 weeks of aerobic training program. 48 hours after the last training session, the soleus muscle of rats in both group were isolated and Bax, Bcl2 and caspase-3 genes expression evaluated by Real Time-PCR.
The results indicated that there is a significant difference in gene expression of Bcl-2 (P 0.05).
The 12 weeks of aerobic training was effective in increasing skeletal muscle mitochondrial anti-apoptotic protein. However, considering the alterations of caspase-3 expression, more researches are needed to identify the effects of exercise training on skeletal muscle apoptosis.