The effect of six weeks of aerobic exercise on the expression of genes involved in aortic tissue pyroptosis of healthy and diabetic male mice

In diabetes, inflammatory processes play a key role and affect all the complications of diabetes. Inflammation is associated with the caspase-1 process, which activates the anti-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18, leading to the death of inflammatory proteins, which is one of the occurrences of pyroptosis. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of six weeks of aerobic exercise on the expression of genes involved in aortic tissue apoptosis in healthy and diabetic mice.

For this purpose, forty male rats (8 weeks old) were divided into 4 groups (10 in each group) after familiarization with exercise protocol: 1) control-healthy, 2) control-diabetes, 3) exercise-diabetes, and 4) exercise. -Healthy. Diabetes model was first induced, then run for 5 days on treadmill for 6 weeks. After 12 to 14 hours of fasting and 72 hours after the last training session, aortic tissue sampling was performed for IL-1β, IL-18, NLRP3 and Caspase-1 analysis by Real Time PCR technique. Data analysis was performed using one-way ANOVA, if significant difference was seen by Tukey post hoc test to determine the difference between groups (P <0.05).

Induction of diabetes led to a significant increase in IL-1β, IL-18, NLRP3 and Caspase-1 genes expression in rat aorta, which resulted in a significant decrease in aerobic exercise. Also, aerobic exercise in healthy mice also decreased the expression of IL-1β, IL-18, NLRP3 and Caspase-1 gene in aortic tissue.

Aerobic exercise may be used as an effective non-pharmacological method to improve diabetes-induced inflammation and prevent vascular disorders.