Effects of weight training and melilotus officinalis extract on alzheimer's disease-related genes

Recently, the role of sports training and medicinal plants in the expression of genes has been considered to prevent the progression of diseases. The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of weight training and oleander extract on interferon regulatory factor 8 (IRF8) and cathepsin S (CTSS) gene expression in the soleus muscle of Alzheimer's disease (AD) model mice.

Fifty-five male Wistar rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: healthy control group, AD control group, AD resistance training group, AD group with the supplement of Melilotus officinalis, and AD resistance training group + Melilotus officinalis supplement. Trimethyltin-induced AD was induced. In the resistance training protocol, a weight was attached to the tail of the rats, and they had to lift this weight on a ladder with 26 steps. Melilotus officinalis was injected intraperitoneally as a supplement for 6 weeks with a dose of 300 mmol/kg. Seventy-two hours after the last training session, the rats were anesthetized, and the hippocampal tissue was immediately extracted, frozen, and analyzed. A two-way analysis of variance was used to estimate the differences between groups in control and experimental AD mice.

There was a significant increase in the expression level of interferon-regulating factor 8 and cathepsin S genes in the AD group compared to the control group. The results of Bonferroni's post-hoc test showed that in the AD group + resistance training + Melilotus officinalis, a significant decrease was observed compared to the AD group (P≤0.05).

Resistance training and the Melilotus officinalis extract with antioxidant mechanisms can affect CTSS and IRF8 gene expression.