The Effect of Detraining High Intensity Interval Training on the Expression of AKT1 and mTORc1 Genes in the Left Ventricle of Diabetic Rats

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 6 weeks of detraining after 12 weeks of high intensity interval training (HIIT) on the expression of AKT1 and mTORc1 genes in the left ventricle of wistar diabetic rats.

Twenty-eight wistar male rats were selected as the study sample and were divided in four groups of healthy control, diabetic control, diabetic HIIT and diabetic HIIT + detraining. The HIIT period was 12 weeks and the detraining period was 6 weeks. Each session consisted of 30 minutes, which included running on a treadmill with one-minute repetitions and a two-minute active recovery between them. To measure AKT1 mRNA and mTORc1 mRNA by RT-Real time PCR, a single-step single step SYBR TAKARA kits from Takara Company was used according to the company's instruction.

HIIT caused a significant increase in AKT1 gene expression (P-value= 0.001). AKT1 decreased with detraining that was not significant (P-value= 0.34) but it was still significantly higher than before training (P-value= 0.017). HIIT caused a significant increase in mTORc1 gene expression (P-value= 0.001) and although it decreased with detraining (P-value= 0.15) and it was no significantly higher than before training (P-value= 0.19).

HIIT led to increased expression of AKT1 and mTORc1 genes in type 2 diabetic rats, while also producing favorable changes in the cardiac structure of these rats. Also, 6 weeks of detraining did somewhat reduce these favorable changes.