Preventive effects of two continuous and interval endurance exercise protocols on myocardial Galectin-3 gene expressions in male Wistar rats following cardiac infarction induction

Abstract

Purpose: Biomarkers contain prognostic information for the identification and prevention of heart disease. Galactin-3 is one of the most probable intermediates between the activation of macrophages and cardiac fibrosis. This study investigates the expression of galectin-3 gene in the heart tissue of male Wistar rats following a period of continuous and interval endurance training.Methods: In the present study, 32 rats were kept under standard conditions and divided into four groups (healthy control group, ischemic control group, continuous training group and interval training group). The healthy control group, without an infarction, and ischemic control group, were suffered cardiac infarction after eight weeks. The training groups have also performed endurance training on treadmill for eight weeks and were suffered cardiac infarction after 48 hours of rest. One week after induction and confidence of ischemia, the rat’s hearts were separated and qRT-PCR method was used to measure the myocardium LGALS3 gene expression. t-test and one-way ANOVA test and then Tukey's post hoc test were used with significant level 0.05 to compare the groups.Results: The findings of this research showed a significant increase in the expression of galectin-3 gene in heart tissue of male Wistar rats after induction of myocardial infarction compared to healthy control group (P < 0.05). Also, the relative expression of this gene in the ischemia control group was significantly higher than the both training groups (P < 0.05). Comparing two types of training, the relative level of expression of galectin-3 gene was lower in the continuous group (P < 0.05).Conclusion: Suffering from infarction leads to increase in some of the myocardial risk factors and Cardiac fibrosis. Endurance training, especially regular continuous training can moderate the increase in some of these factors.

Keywords

• infarction
• macrophage
• galectin-3
• interval training
• continuous training