The Effect of 8 Weeks of Aerobic Exercise on the Expression of PGC-1α and VEGF Genes in Healthy Male Rat's Myocardial Muscle

The most important mitochondrial biogenesis regulator is PGC-1α that is a cell receptor and facilitates the mitochondrial protein release, while VEGF is the most important growth factor involved in this process. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 8 weeks of aerobic training on the expression of PGC-1α and VEGF genes in male healthy rat's myocardial muscle by fundamental experimental method. 12 male Wistar rats (mean weight 180±20 gr and age 8 weeks) were divided into control (n=6) and exercise (n=6) groups. The exercise group had 30 minutes of running on a treadmill with an intensity of 50-60 VO2max for 8 weeks, 5 sessions per week while the control group had ran on the treadmill for 15 minutes with 2 m/min. speed. On the day after the last session, rats were dissected and the samples were transferred to the laboratory to extract RNA. To investigate the expression of PGC1 and VEGF genes, SYBER Green Real-time PCR technique was used. REST software (version 2009) was used to determine the relative expression of exercise group relative to the control group (P˂0.05). The expressions of PGC-1α and VEGF genes were 0.97 and 0.85 in exercise group relative to the control group (not statistically significant, P=0.95 and P=0.63 respectively). The results indicated the insignificant change in the expression of PGC-1α and VEGF genes in myocardial muscle following 8 weeks of aerobic exercise.