The relationship between wnt/β-catenin pathway and muscle-enriched myokine musclin following combined exercise and curcumin consumption in rats with glioblastoma multiforme

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effect of resistance-aerobic exercise and curcumin consumption on brain wnt/β-catenin expression and their correlation with muscle-enriched myokine musclin in rats with glioblastoma multiforme. Fourty male Wistar rats were used in this study. After getting familiarized with the research environment, the rats were randomly divided into five groups of eight: healthy control, tumor control, tumor + resistance-aerobic exercise, tumor + Nano-curcumin supplement, and tumor + aerobic-resistance exercise + Nano-curcumin supplement. For tumor induction, glioblastoma stereotaxic injection was utilized in the frontal cortex. The exercise training group did aerobic training and resistance training 3 days a week for 4 weeks. Nano curcumin supplement was gavage with a dose of 80 mg/kg for 4 weeks, 5 days a week. The brain histology changes of the groups with GBM injection confirmed brain tumor induction compared to the healthy control group (p<0.05). The expression of wnt/β-catenin genes in all tumor groups showed a significant increase compared to the healthy control group. Treatment with resistance-aerobic exercise and curcumin (especially the combination of both) revealed the greatest decrease in the expression of wnt/β-catenin genes compared to the tumor group. Wnt mRNA had a negative correlation with musclin mRNA in Tumor+N. cur group (r=-0.905, p=0.001). It seems that the use of nano supplements along with combined resistance-aerobic exercise can control the wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway in brain tumor tissue. In addition, the cross talk between muscle and brain should be more studied with considering different myokine.

Keywords

• brain cancer
• musclin
• resistance-aerobic exercise
• curcumin
• gene expression