Apoptosis in cardiac cells in response to acute exercise protocol: An experimental protocol in the sedentary rats

Metallothionein (MT) exerts a protective effect on the cell against oxidative stress and apoptosis. The studies have previously shown that acute exercise in untrained rats resulted in apoptosis of renal tubular cells and liver, but the effects of the treadmill exhaustive running on cardiac cells apoptosis are not well known. In this study, we examined the response of markers related to apoptosis [metallothionein(MT2), level of lipid peroxidation(thiobarbituric acid reactive substances) and CPK-MB] and relationship between the mentioned markers in cardiac cells of 16 sedentary rats that were exposed to acute exercise. The rats performed the ramp exhaustive protocol of 20 to 30 m/min. The MT2 was examined by radioimmunoassay method and the level of lipid peroxidation was assayed by thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) method in heart tissue homogenates. The MT2, TBARS and CPK-MB levels increased significantly in acutely exercised rats. Furthermore, Changes in MT2 were related to changes in TBARS and CPK-MB. The results obtained in this study demonstrated for the first time that MT2 was induced by stress. We speculated that apoptosis in cardiac cells in response to acute physical effort could be due to oxidative stress. However, Additional studies would be nessesary to elucidate the role of MT2 in cardiac cells.