Effects of Physical Exercise on the Expression of MicroRNAs: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Silva, FCd, Iop, RdR, Andrade, A, Costa, VP, Gutierres Filho, PJB, and Silva, Rd. Effects of physical exercise on the expression of microRNAs: A systematic review 34(1): 270–280, 2020—Studies have detected changes in the expression of miRNAs after physical exercise, which brings new insight into the molecular control of adaptation to exercise. Therefore, the objective of the current systematic review of experimental and quasiexperimental studies published in the past 10 years was to assess evidence related to acute effects, chronic effects, and both acute and chronic effects of physical exercise on miRNA expression in humans, as well as its functions, evaluated in serum, plasma, whole blood, saliva, or muscle biopsy. For this purpose, the following electronic databases were selected: MEDLINE by Pubmed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, and also a manual search in references of the selected articles to April 2017. Experimental and quasiexperimental studies were included. Results indicate that, of the 345 studies retrieved, 40 studies met the inclusion criteria and two articles were included as a result of the manual search. The 42 studies were analyzed, and it can be observed acute and chronic effects of physical exercises (aerobic and resistance) on the expression of several miRNAs in healthy subjects, athletes, young, elderly and in patients with congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, diabetes mellitus type 2 associated with morbid obesity, prediabetic, and patients with intermittent claudication. It is safe to assume that miRNA changes, both in muscle tissues and bodily fluids, are presumably associated with the benefits induced by acute and chronic physical exercise. Thus, a better understanding of changes in miRNAs as a response to physical exercise might contribute to the development of miRNAs as therapeutic targets for the improvement of exercise capacity in individuals with any given disease. However, additional studies are necessary to draw accurate conclusions.

Circulating and Adipose Tissue miRNAs in Women With Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Responses to High-Intensity Interval Training

“…Additionally, diverse sampling timepoint (24 h post last training session in the study by Barber et al (2019) compared to≥48 h in our study) and study participants (middle aged men and women without PCOS compared to women with PCOS in our study) may, in part, help explain these divergent findings. Parr et al (2016) , Denham et al (2018) , Barber et al (2019) , and Da Silva et al (2019) have previously reported that chronic exercise training programs can significantly modulate c-miRNA expression in healthy individuals and in those with overweight/obesity. The physiological significance of such responses are unclear and difficult to explain due to a variety of different miRNA quantification techniques reported, differences in sampling time points, a range of exercise protocols, and divergent clinical cohorts ( Gomes et al, 2015 ).…”

“…Quantification of both circulating and AT miRNAs were performed on a Qiagen customized 96-well miScript miRNA PCR Array (339330; Qiagen, Australia) with miScript SYBR using a BioRad CFX96 (BioRad, Australia) following manufacturer’s instructions. The array contained eight miRNAs selected a priori based on previous reports of altered c-miRs profiles in women with PCOS and/or in response to exercise training ( Murri et al, 2013 ; Sorensen et al, 2014 ; Improta et al, 2018 ; Da Silva et al, 2019 ). The selected c-miRs were hsa-miR-21-5p, hsa-miR-27b-5p, hsa-miR-93-5p, hsa-miR-146a-5p, hsa-miR-155-5p, hsa-miR-222-3p, hsa-miR-223-3p, and hsa-miR-103a-3p.…”

Regulation of microRNAs in Satellite Cell Renewal, Muscle Function, Sarcopenia and the Role of Exercise

“…Several studies have investigated the miRNAs changes to exercise. A comprehensive review of studies analyzing the miRNAs expression in human serum, plasma, whole blood, saliva, or muscle biopsy has been recently published [23]. To integrate more information and understand better the role of exercise on miRNAs expression, in this review, the pure long-duration moderate-intensity endurance exercise will be differentiated from the high-intensity endurance training.…”

“…Exercise training promotes positive adaptations in skeletal muscle, acting as an important stimulator of extra/intracellular signals, leading to changes in gene expression. Several studies have revealed that miRNA expression in skeletal muscle is modulated in response to physical exercise, see the exhaustive reviews [21][22][23], highlighting the relevance of the miRNAs role in the process of adaptation to exercise. More recently, circulating miRNAs have been investigated as possible biomarkers of exercise training [24].…”

Skeletal muscle effects of two different 10‐week exercise regimens, voluntary wheel running, and forced treadmill running, in mice: A pilot study

“…Finally, recent research suggests that exercise also induces characteristic alterations in the expression of genes encoding small regulatory RNAs (micro RNAs, miRNAs) and genes associated with the miRNA biogenesis pathway (for review, see Kirby and McCarthy, 2013; Meurer et al., 2016; Russell and Lamon, 2015; Silva et al., 2017; Silva et al., 2020; Sjögren et al., 2018; Ultimo et al., 2018; Widmann et al., 2019). In this context, specifically muscle‐specific and muscle‐enriched miRNAs, so‐called myomiRNAs, are interesting (for review, see Horak et al., 2016).…”