Acute Response of Circulating Vascular Regulating MicroRNAs during and after High-Intensity and High-Volume Cycling in Children

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the present study was to analyze the response of vascular circulating microRNAs (miRNAs; miR-16, miR-21, miR-126) and the VEGF mRNA following an acute bout of HIIT and HVT in children.Methods:Twelve healthy competitive young male cyclists (14.4 ± 0.8 years; 57.9 ± 9.4 ml·min−1·kg−1 peak oxygen uptake) performed one session of high intensity 4 × 4 min intervals (HIIT) at 90–95% peak power output (PPO), each interval separated by 3 min of active recovery, and one high volume session (HVT) consisting of a constant load exercise for 90 min at 60% PPO. Capillary blood from the earlobe was collected under resting conditions, during exercise (d1 = 20 min, d2 = 30 min, d3 = 60 min), and 0, 30, 60, 180 min after the exercise to determine miR-16, -21, -126, and VEGF mRNA.Results: HVT significantly increased miR-16 and miR-126 during and after the exercise compared to pre-values, whereas HIIT showed no significant influence on the miRNAs compared to pre-values. VEGF mRNA significantly increased during and after HIIT (d1, 30′, 60′, 180′) and HVT (d3, 0′, 60′).Conclusion: Results of the present investigation suggest a volume dependent exercise regulation of vascular regulating miRNAs (miR-16, miR-21, miR-126) in children. In line with previous data, our data show that acute exercise can alter circulating miRNAs profiles that might be used as novel biomarkers to monitor acute and chronic changes due to exercise in various tissues.

WITHDRAWN: Screened microRNAs related to endothelial progenitor cells and verified the target gene of microRNA-126-3p

“…The study shows that exercise can increase vascular endothelial miR-126 levels. A study on children by Wahl and colleagues [37] showed that high-volume training (130 min at 55% peak power output) and sprint interval training (4 × 30 s all-out) was followed by a large increase in circulatory miR-126 compared to baseline. Their results suggest that exercise can also improve miR-126 levels in the circulation.…”

Circulating MicroRNAs as Potential Biomarkers of Exercise Response

“…Nevertheless, substantial variations in the whole blood c-miRNAs patterns between endurance and strength athletes and various exercise protocols were reported and support the idea that c-miRNAs are well suited to monitor the overall status of an athlete and the adaptation of organism to exercise [117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125]. …”

“…A huge number of studies have been focused on their potential as biomarkers for various diseases, particularly for cancer. In a similar manner, physical exercise has been shown to be an activator of gene expression and miRNA levels that vary considerably depending on the mode of exercise [30,59,60,61,62,63,90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106,117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125]. Many studies revealed miRNAs to have a potential as markers of muscle function and exercise adaptation.…”

“…Eight studies [117,118,119,120,121,122,123,124,125] have evaluated c-miRNAs responsive to exercise in the whole blood samples. Tonevitsky et al presented a complex study of dynamically regulated miRNA-mRNA networks by cardiorespiratory exercise screened for 20,000 mRNAs and 200 miRNAs in the whole blood samples.…”

“…Even more recently, a study investigating the impact of exercise on angiogenesis associated c-miRNAs in children was published [124]. High-volume cycling exercise increased miR-16 and miR-126 levels, whereas high-intensity cycling showed no influence on circulating levels of studied miRNAs.…”