Similar Responses of Circulating MicroRNAs to Acute High-Intensity Interval Exercise and Vigorous-Intensity Continuous Exercise

Abstract

High-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) has been reported to be more beneficial for physical adaptation than low-to-moderate exercise intensity. Recently, it is becoming increasingly evident that circulating miRNAs (c-miRNAs) may distinguish between specific stress signals imposed by variations in the duration, modality, and type of exercise. The aim of this study is to investigate whether or not HIIE is superior to vigorous-intensity continuous exercise (VICE), which is contributing to develop effective fitness assessment. Twenty-six young males were enrolled, and plasma samples were collected prior to exercise and immediately after HIIE or distance-matched VICE. The miRNA level profiles in HIIE were initially determined using TaqMan Low Density Array (TLDA). And the differentially miRNA levels were validated by stem-loop quantitative reverse-transcription PCR (RT-qPCR). Furthermore, these selective c-miRNAs were measured for VICE. Our results showed that some muscle-related miRNAs levels in the plasma, such as miR-1, miR-133a, miR-133b, and miR-206 significantly increased following HIIE or VICE compared to those at rest (P < 0.05), and there was only a significant reduction in miR-1 level for HIIE compared to VICE (P < 0.05), while no significant differences were observed for other muscle-related miRNAs between both exercises (P > 0.05). In addition, some tissue-related or unknown original miRNA levels, such as miR-485-5p, miR-509-5p, miR-517a, miR-518f, miR-520f, miR-522, miR-553, and miR-888, also significantly increased (P < 0.05) in both exercises compared to rest. However, no significant differences were found between both exercises (P > 0.05). Overall, endurance exercise assessed in this study both led to significant increases in selective c-miRNAs of comparable magnitude, suggesting that both types of endurance exercise have general stress processes. Accordingly, the similar responses to both acute exercises likely indicate both exercises can be used interchangeably. Further work is needed to reveal the functional significance and signaling mechanisms behind changes in c-miRNA turnover during exercise.

Muscle-Enriched MicroRNAs Isolated from Whole Blood Are Regulated by Exercise and Are Potential Biomarkers of Cardiorespiratory Fitness

“…Others have demonstrated myomiR changes after various forms and intensities of exercise and also after longer periods of exercise training in human plasma (Baggish et al, 2011; Aoi et al, 2013; Nielsen et al, 2014; Wardle et al, 2015; Clauss et al, 2016; Cui et al, 2016) and skeletal muscle (Nielsen et al, 2010; Russell et al, 2013). Many of the findings amongst studies are incomparable due to different subject demographics, tissue sample types, exercise timing and other methodological considerations.…”

Circulating MicroRNAs as Potential Biomarkers of Exercise Response

“…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.…”

“…myomiRs were included in the investigation in most of the studies. miR-1, miR-133 and miR-206 levels were upregulated in all of the studies with the exception of those in which the analytical threshold of detection could not be reached or myomiRs were not included in the consideration [91,92,93,95,96,97,100,104]. miR-499 was upregulated in three studies, one of them was chronic resistance training [104] and two of them were marathon runs [91,99].…”

“…Physical exercise and training induce numerous physiological alterations in cardiovascular system, angiogenesis, cell metabolism, inflammation and muscle remodeling. To date, 17 studies investigating the influence of physical exercise on c-miRNAs levels in plasma and serum have been published [90,91,92,93,94,95,96,97,98,99,100,101,102,103,104,105,106]. …”

“…Response of c-miRNAs on these two regimes of exercise revealed the same expression pattern of detected miRNAs [100]. …”