The effect of 8 weeks of resistance training on total and phosphorylated extracellular signal regulated kinases (ERK) in flexor hallucis longusmuscle of rats

To date, more than 100 types of kinases have been known that one of the most famous of them is the large family of mitochondria -cased kinases (MAPK), which regulated by the out-cell message (ERK). The ERK controls many important cellular functions, but the effect of resistance training on ERK protein has not been clearly revealed. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of resistance training on the expression of total and phosphorylated ERK proteins in the flexor hallucis longus muscle (FHL) in healthy male rats. For this purpose, 12 male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into groups as experimental (n=6) and control (n=6). The experimental groups exerted resistance training including climbing on a ladder during the 8 weeks, 5 sessions per week with a weight hanging on to the tail carried out increased load has been done weekly based on body weight of mice so that the first week was from 30% to 200% in 8 weeks. Fourty eight hours after the last training session, FHL muscle was extracted and the expression of the relevant protein was measured by ELISA. For statistical analysis, one-way ANOVA method was used with a significance level of 0.05.  The results showed that resistance exercise significantly increased the total protein content (p=0.01) but had no significantly increased its phosphorylated form (p=0.08). Probably, long-term resistance training is not an appropriate intervention to ERK activation. In order to investigate this exercise induced changes, perhaps it is better to examine other signalling pathways.