The effect of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) on gene expression of apoptotic markers in the skeletal muscle of diabetic rats

Apoptosis plays important roles in the pathophysiology of Type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) on gene expression of apoptotic markers in the skeletal muscle of diabetic rats.

To implementation of this experimental research, 60 male Wistar rats weighing 220 ± 20 gr randomly were divided into 5 groups including baseline control, eight-week control, diabetes, training and diabetes-training. In this study, the rats were diabetic using given a single dose of 50 mg/ kg per body weight and peritoneal injection streptozotocin. High-intensity interval training performed with intensity of 80-85% VO2max, 5 days a week and for 8 weeks. The expression of Caspas3 and Bcl2 genes were measured by Real Time PCR. Data were analyzed by One-way ANOVA and Bonferron's post hoc test at the P<0.05.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between the mean expression of Caspas3 and Bcl2 of skeletal muscle in diabetic rats in different groups (P=0.000). The expression of Bcl2 skeletal muscle in the training (P=0.000) and training-diabetes (P=0.048) group was significantly higher than the diabetes group (P=0.000). Also, expression of caspase-3 skeletal muscle in training and training-diabetes was significantly lower than the diabetes group (P=0.000).

It seems to diabetes be associated with increase in skeletal muscle apoptosis, and high-intensity interval training can help regulate the level of apoptosis in skeletal muscle during diabetes.