Physical Performance and Skeletal Muscle Transcriptional Adaptations Are Not Impacted by Exercise Training Frequency in Mice with Lower Extremity Peripheral Artery Disease

Abstract

Exercise training is an important therapeutic strategy for lower extremity peripheral artery disease (PAD). However, the effects of different exercise frequency on physiological adaptations remain unknown. Thus, this study compared the effects of a 7-week moderate-intensity aerobic training performed either three or five times/week on skeletal muscle gene expression and physical performance in mice with PAD. Hypercholesterolemic male ApoE-deficient mice were subjected to unilateral iliac artery ligation and randomly assigned to sedentary or exercise training regimens either three or five times/week. Physical performance was assessed using a treadmill test to exhaustion. Expression of genes related to glucose and lipid metabolism, mitochondrial biogenesis, muscle fiber-type, angiogenesis, and inflammation was analyzed in non-ischemic and ischemic gastrocnemius muscles by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Physical performance was improved to the same extent in both exercise groups. For gene expression patterns, no statistical differences were observed between three or five times/week exercised mice, both in the non-ischemic and ischemic muscles. Our data show that exercising three to five times a week induces similar beneficial effects on performance. Those results are associated with muscular adaptations that remain identical between the two frequencies.

Special Issue on Metabolic Adaptations in Cardiac and Skeletal Muscle during Acute and Chronic Exercise

“…While the benefits of exercise in the treatment of chronic disease are established, the molecular and metabolic adaptations are still not well characterized. This Special Issue of Metabolites presents five original research articles from research laboratories in three separate countries, which demonstrate the ability of chronic exercise training to modulate various aspects of metabolism in both humans [ 3 , 4 ] and rodent models [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Moreover, these articles evaluate the potential of exercise training to elicit positive metabolic adaptations in several chronic diseases and conditions.…”

“…In addition to the identification of an appropriate intensity, the frequency (i.e., number of sessions per week) of exercise remains an important consideration. Lavier and associates compared a 7-week, moderately intense, aerobic exercise training program, performed either three times per week or five times per week, on physical performance in an animal model of peripheral artery disease (PAD) [ 5 ]. Interestingly, mice with PAD had similar improvements in endurance exercise capacity (i.e., total distance, duration, and speed) on a treadmill test to exhaustion, regardless of whether they exercised three or five times per week.…”