Comparing the Short-Term Effect of Swimming Exercise and that of Curcumin Supplementation on Gene Expression of Laminin and Procollagen 3 in Liver of Male Rats Following Ethanol Abuse

This study aimed to compare the short-term effect of swimming exercise and that of curcumin supplementation on gene expression of laminin and procollagen 3 in liver of male rats following ethanol abuse. In this study, 48 male Wistar rats aged 12 weeks (weight: 240±10g) were selected, out of which, 8 rats were assigned to a control group and 40 rats received ethanol (5-7mg/kg of rat’s weight) through injection every 8 hours for 4 days. Six days after the final ethanol injection, the rats were randomly divided into five groups of ethanol, exercise, curcumin, sham, exercise + curcumin. Endurance-focused swimming training program was conducted every day for two weeks from 20 minutes to 1 hour. There was daily intra-peritoneal injection of curcumin (50 mg/kg of rat’s weight) for two weeks. The rats in sham group were injected with curcumin’s solvent (dimethylsulfoxide). The ethanol group received water and food for two weeks. At the end of the course, after anesthesia, the animals' liver tissues were removed. Quantitative Real-time RT-PCR was used to determine the changes occurred in laminin and procollagen 3 gene expression. The data were analyzed by Spss 21 through independent T-test, ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test at the significant level of p < 5%. Laminin (p=0.007) and procollagen 3(p=0.0001) gene expression significantly increased in the ethanol group. The results show that the expression of laminin was significantly decreased in the training + cucumin and curcumin groups in comparison to the training, sham and ethanol groups (p=0.0001). Also, expression of procollagen 3 was significantly lower in the exercises +curcumin group compared to the training, curcumin, sham and ethanol groups (p=0.003). According to the findings, ethanol abuse increased expression of laminin and procollagen 3. It seems that short-term exercise and curcumin supplementation inhibit gene expression enhanced by ethanol abuse.