Circulating, cell-free DNA as a marker for exercise load in intermittent sports

Abstract

BackgroundAttempts to establish a biomarker reflecting individual player load in intermittent sports such as football have failed so far. Increases in circulating DNA (cfDNA) have been demonstrated in various endurance sports settings. While it has been proposed that cfDNA could be a suitable marker for player load in intermittent sports, the effects on cfDNA of repeated sprinting as an essential feature in intermittent sports are unknown. For the first time, we assessed both alterations of cfDNA due to repeated maximal sprints and due to a professional football game.MethodsNine participants were subjected to a standardised sprint training session with cross-over design of five maximal sprints of 40 meters with either “short” (1 minute) or “long” pauses (5 minutes). Capillary cfDNA and lactate were measured after every sprint and venous cfDNA before and after each series of sprints. Moreover, capillary cfDNA and lactate values were taken in 23 professional football players before and after incremental exercise testing, during the course of a training week at rest (baseline) and in all 17 enrolled players following a season game.ResultsLactate and venous cfDNA increased more pronounced during “short” compared to “long” (1.4-fold, p = 0.032 and 1.7-fold, p = 0.016) and cfDNA correlated significantly with lactate (r = 0.69; p<0.001). Incremental exercise testing increased cfDNA 7.0-fold (p<0.001). The season game increased cfDNA 22.7-fold (p<0.0001), while lactate showed a 2.0-fold (p = 0.09) increase compared to baseline. Fold-changes in cfDNA correlated with distance covered during game (spearman’s r = 0.87, p = 0.0012), while no correlation between lactate and the tracking data could be found.DiscussionWe show for the first time that cfDNA could be an objective marker for distance covered in elite intermittent sports. In contrast to the potential of more established blood-based markers like IL-6, CK, or CRP, cfDNA shows by far the strongest fold-change and a high correlation with a particular load related aspect in professional football.

Cell-free DNA donor fraction analysis in pediatric and adult heart transplant patients by multiplexed allele-specific quantitative PCR: Validation of a rapid and highly sensitive clinical test for stratification of rejection probability

“…The low level of DNA release into the circulation seen in good health becomes elevated in response to induced cellular injury in various pathologic states including sepsis and severe infections, trauma, ischemic injury, autoimmune disease, and cancer [54][55][56][57][58][59]. Transient non-pathologic cfDNA elevations also occur after intense or prolonged exercise [60], but rapidly return to baseline upon recovery, consistent with the short half-life of cfDNA fragments in plasma, which generally ranges from 4-30 min [61][62][63]. Despite complexity of cfDNA origins in mammalian biology and need for consideration of contributing clinical conditions, the preponderant generation of donor-specific and recipient-specific cfDNA from cellular apoptosis in transplant patients and its relatively short plasma half-life make cfDNA DF an elegant and dependable temporal indicator of ongoing selective injury to the donor organ.…”

Whole genome amplification of cell-free DNA enables detection of circulating tumor DNA mutations from fingerstick capillary blood

“…Due to limiting sample volume, we were not able to measure the starting concentration of cfDNA purified from fingerstick plasma, but other studies have demonstrated capillary cfDNA concentrations to be ~50% lower than venous levels on average (i.e. approximately 10 ng/mL or 10 pg/μL) 31 , 32 . However, there is growing evidence that substantial venous cfDNA losses occur during silica membrane-based purification (unlike precipitation-based methods) 33 – 35 , which may account for the observed trend in WG-RCA yields (Fig.…”

Children&rsquo;s Cortisol and Cell-Free DNA Trajectories in Relation to Sedentary Behavior and Physical Activity in School: A Longitudinal Analysis

“…Thus, we assume that our cortisol dataset based on the measurement procedure with three time points (08:30 AM, 10:30 AM, and 12:30 PM) is not entirely comparable with the time points used previously [45]. Some studies have reported that cfDNA levels already increase with moderate PA below the level of the aerobic-anaerobic transition [26,28]. The results of the cfDNA AUCi posterior distributions suggest that such a association is also more likely in both teaching settings.…”

“…In particular, the cfDNA has been proven to be highly sensitive to physical exercise as a stressor (see [27] for review). Reportedly, the cfDNA increased with moderate PA below the level of the aerobic-anaerobic transition [26,28]. Regarding psychological stress, little is known about the reactivity of cfDNA concentrations.…”