THE COMBINED EFFECT OF LONG-TERM FEEDING OF HIGH-FAT DIET AND REGULAR AEROBIC TRAINING ON GENE EXPRESSION OF UNCOUPLING PROTEIN 1 (UCP1) IN BROWN ADIPOSE TISSUE AND SARCOLIPIN (SLN) IN SOLEUS MUSCLE OF MICE: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

Uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1) and Sarcolipin (SLN) are regulator proteins in non-shivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue and skeletal muscle (SM), respectively. This study aimed to investigate the combined effects of long-term feeding of a high-fat diet and regular aerobic training on its gene expression in mice.

28 mice were assigned into four groups including; 1) control (n=7), 2) High Fat Diet (HFD), 3) Aerobic Training (AT) (n=7), and 4) High Fat Diet- Aerobic Training (HFD-AT) (n=7). The subjects of the HFD group were fed with a high-fat diet (fat= 45%) for 12 weeks. The mice of AT group underwent aerobic training on a treadmill for six weeks. HFD-AT group underwent the aerobic training in addition to a high fat diet. The Real-Time–PCR method was used to measure the gene expression of UCP1 and SLN.

Data showed that the aerobic training did not significantly affect the expressions of UCP1 and SLN (p=0.17; p=0.87). However, a high-fat diet caused an increase (approximately three-fold) in the expression of UCP1 and SLN (p=0.0006; p=0.009). Basically, the aerobic training prevented the HFD-induced increase of UCP1 and SLN (p=0.29; p=0.49).

These results indicated that regular aerobic training could limit the increasing effect of the high-fat diet on thermogenic factors, i.e., UCP1 and SLN. Based on this, it seems that aerobic training could modulate diet-induced thermogenesis by these regulating mechanisms.