The effect of aerobic training and eugenol supplementation on the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway in skeletal muscle of male rats poisoned with chlorpyrifos

Chlorpyrifos (CPF) is an insecticide that is widely used in the world. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effect of 4-week aerobic exercise and eugenol supplementation on the phosphatidylinositol-3-kinases/protein kinase/mammalian target of rapamycin (Pi3K/AKT/mTOR) pathway on the skeletal muscle of male rats poisoned with CPF.

Overall, 12-week-old female rats were used in this experimental research. The rats were randomly divided into 8 groups (8 rats in each group), including healthy control, toxic control, poison solvent, corn oil solvent, poisoned + eugenol, poisoned + aerobic exercise, and poisoned + aerobic exercise + eugenol. Moderate training was in the range of 50-60% VO2max, including 5 training sessions per week (treadmill). Poisoning was performed with CPF poison with a dose of 3 mg/kg, and the dose of eugenol was determined to be 250 mg/kg.

There was no significant difference between the groups in terms of mTOR and AKT expression (P = 0.369, P = 0.59). However, the expression of PI3k in the poisoned control group was lower than that in the healthy control group (P = 0.049). In addition, the expression of PI3k was higher in the poisoned + eugenol + exercise group compared to the poisoned control group (P = 0.009). The corn solvent group also had a higher PI3k expression in comparison to the poisoned control group (P = 0.025). Finally, there was no significant difference among the other groups.

In general, 4 weeks of CPF poisoning caused a significant decrease in PI3K, but it did not have a significant effect on AKT and mTOR. Based on the finding, 4 aerobic exercises and eugenol consumption could significantly increase in PI3K, while it had no significant effect on AKT and mTOR.