The effect of eight weeks of continuous aerobic exercise training on VEGFA protein expression and eNOS and VEGFR1/2 Receptors gene expression in the cardiocytes of rats with type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is considered as a risk factor for heart disease and has a major contribution to death and mortality due to cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a continuous aerobic training period on the expression of VEGFA protein and expression of eNOS gene and VEGFR1 / 2 receptors in cardiocytes of type 2 diabetic rats.

18 rats were randomly divided into 3 groups of 6 including healthy control, diabetic control, and continuous aerobic exercise. After an 8-week training period, the expression of eNOS VEGFR1 and VEGFR2 genes and VEGFA protein in left ventricular cardiomyocytes of rats was evaluated by RealTime-PCR and Western Blot techniques, respectively. Insulin level, glucose level and insulin resistance index were measured. To determine the significance of the differences between the research groups, one-way ANOVA statistical test was used at the significance level of p= 0.05.

The results showed that there was a significant difference (p<0.05) between the VEGFA protein expression and the continuous aerobic exercise control group. There was a significant difference in the expression of eNOS gene between the two groups of continuous training with diabetic control (p<0.05), the values of changes in VEGFR1 gene expression were positively and incrementally adjusted compared to the diabetic training group. There was also a significant difference between insulin, glucose and insulin resistance levels in the training group compared to the control group (p<0.05).

It seems that the 8 weeks of continuous aerobic exercise training on the expression of VEGFA protein and expression of eNOS gene and tyrosine kinase receptor genes in the cardiocytes of diabetic rats is effective and can probably be considered as an effective intervention method.