Research Article Physical Exercise Reduces the Expression of RANTES and Its CCR5 Receptor in the Adipose Tissue of Obese Humans Engin Baturcam, 1,2 Jehad Abubaker, 1 Ali Tiss, 1 Mohamed Abu-Farha, 1 Abdelkrim Khadir, 1 Fahad Al-Ghimlas, 3 Irina Al-Khairi, 1 Preethi Cherian, 1 Naser Elkum, 4 Maha Hammad, 1 Jeena John, 1 Sina Kavalakatt, 1 Cynthia Lehe, 1 Samia Warsame, 1 Kazem Behbehani, 1,3,4 Said Dermime, 5 and Mohammed Dehbi 1,6 1 Department of Biomedical Research, Dasman Diabetes Institute, 1180 Dasman, Kuwait 2 Queensland Children’s Medical Research Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4029, Australia 3 Fitness and Rehabilitation Centre, Dasman Diabetes Institute, 1180 Dasman, Kuwait 4 Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Dasman Diabetes Institute, 1180 Dasman, Kuwait 5 King Fahad Specialist Hospital, Dammam 15215, Saudi Arabia 6 Diabetes Research Center, Qatar Biomedical Research Institute, Education City, P.O. Box 5825, Doha, Qatar Correspondence should be addressed to Mohammed Dehbi; mdehbi@qf.org.qa Received 19 December 2013; Accepted 30 March 2014; Published 17 April 2014 Academic Editor: Chiara De Luca Copyright © 2014 Engin Baturcam et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. RANTES and its CCR5 receptor trigger inlammation and its progression to insulin resistance in obese. In the present study, we investigated for the irst time the efect of physical exercise on the expression of RANTES and CCR5 in obese humans. Fity- seven adult nondiabetic subjects (17 lean and 40 obese) were enrolled in a 3-month supervised physical exercise. RANTES and CCR5 expressions were measured in PBMCs and subcutaneous adipose tissue before and ater exercise. Circulating plasma levels of RANTES were also investigated. here was a signiicant increase in RANTES and CCR5 expression in the subcutaneous adipose tissue of obese compared to lean. In PBMCs, however, while the levels of RANTES mRNA and protein were comparable between both groups, CCR5 mRNA was downregulated in obese subjects ( < 0.05). Physical exercise signiicantly reduced the expression of both RANTES and CCR5 ( < 0.05) in the adipose tissue of obese individuals with a concomitant decrease in the levels of the inlammatory markers TNF-, IL-6, and P-JNK. Circulating RANTES correlated negatively with anti-inlammatory IL-1ra ( = 0.001) and positively with proinlammatory IP-10 and TBARS levels ( < 0.05). herefore, physical exercise may provide an efective approach for combating the deleterious efects associated with obesity through RANTES signaling in the adipose tissue. 1. Introduction Chronic low-grade inlammation and aberrant regulation of the stress response system are two prominent hallmarks of obesity, a major risk factor for the development of insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and car- diovascular diseases [1, 2]. Sedentary lifestyles and excessive food intake are considered as key contributors to this chronic condition. he white adipose tissue has been identiied as the predominant site of obesity-associated inlammatory reactions due to its iniltration by immune inlammatory cells such as monocytes, macrophages, h1 T cells, and dendritic cells [2–4]. hese immune cells, together with adipocytes and stromal vascular cells, constitute a cellular network that produces various inlammatory mediators. Obesity-induced inlammatory response impairs insulin signaling in insulin- responsive organs and causes systemic insulin resistance, which leads to a perturbation of glucose homeostasis and ultimately type-2 diabetes [5, 6]. Studies on mice indicated that obesity also alters the balance between pro- and anti- inlammatory activities in adipose tissue by promoting the phenotypic switch from M2 anti-inlammatory macrophages Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mediators of Inflammation Volume 2014, Article ID 627150, 13 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/627150