The Effect of Combined Exercise on the Expression of FoxO and Atrogin Pathway Genes in the Gastrocnemius and Soleus Muscles of Elderly Rats
Skeletal muscle atrophy is a common debilitating condition that is associated with immobility and aging, which leads to a decrease in muscle function. Accordingly, this study aimed to measure the effect of combined exercise training on the expression of FoxO, and Atrogin pathway genes in the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles of old rats.
The present study was an experimental study with 14 Wistar male rats aged between 22 to 24 months, which were divided into two equal experimental and control groups. The combined exercises included 5 training sessions per week for 10 weeks. The expression level of the desired genes was used by the real-time PCR method. Independent t-test was used to analyze the data.
The results showed that after 10 weeks of combined training, the expression level of FoxO gene in the soleus muscle and the level of Atrogin-1 gene expression in both the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles had a significant decrease (p<0.05) in the experimental group compared to the control group The comparison of the expression of the FoxO gene in the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles in the experimental group had a significant difference, as the decrease in the expression of this gene in the soleus muscle was significant (p<0.05).
The results of this research showed that the combined exercise caused the reduction of FoxO gene expression in soleus aerobic muscle and Atrogin-1 gene expression in both types of soleus aerobic muscle and anaerobic gastrocnemius muscles of elderly rats, which requires further research on human samples.