Effects of long-term football training on the expression profile of genes involved in muscle oxidative metabolism A. Alfieri a, b , D. Martone b , M.B. Randers c , G. Labruna d , A. Mancini a, b , J.J. Nielsen c , J. Bangsbo c , P. Krustrup c, e , P. Buono a, d, * a Department of Movement Sciences and Wellness (DiSMEB), University Parthenope, Naples, Italy b CEINGE e Biotecnologie Avanzate, Naples, Italy c Copenhagen Centre for Team Sport and Health, Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark d IRCCS SDN, Naples, Italy e Sport and Health Sciences, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, United Kingdom article info Article history: Received 5 August 2014 Accepted 12 November 2014 Available online 28 November 2014 Keywords: Recreational training Football Muscle biopsies Messenger expression LV-HIT abstract We investigated whether long-term recreational football training affects the expression of health-related biochemical and molecular markers in healthy untrained subjects. Five untrained healthy men trained for 1 h 2.4 times/week for 12 weeks and 1.3 times/week for another 52 weeks. Blood samples and a muscle biopsy from the vastus lateralis were collected at T0 (pre intervention) and at T1 (post intervention). Gene expression was measured by RTqPCR on RNA extracted from muscle biopsies. The expression levels of the genes principally involved in energy metabolism (PPARg, adiponectin, AMPKa1/a2, TFAM, NAMPT, PGC1a and SIRT1) were measured at T0 and T1. Up- regulation of PPARg (p < 0.0005), AMPKa1(p < 0.01), AMPKa2(p < 0.0005) and adiponectin was observed at T1 vs T0. Increases were also found in the expression of TFAM (p < 0.001), NAMPT (p < 0.01), PGC1a (p < 0.01) and SIRT1 (p < 0.01), which are directly or indirectly involved in the glucose and lipid oxidative metabolism. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that fat percentage was independently associated with NAMPT, PPARg and adiponectin expression. In conclusion, long-term recreational foot- ball training could be a useful tool to improve the expression of muscle molecular biomarkers that are correlated to oxidative metabolism in healthy males. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Regular endurance exercise training can improve the physical capacity of inactive subjects and promote health. High-intensity interval training (HIT) significantly induces the expression of bio- markers related to performance and health in both healthy and unhealthy individuals and is therefore an effective alternative to traditional endurance training [1]. Less is known about the effects of low-volume HIT (LV-HIT), although evidence suggests that this type of training modifies health-related biomarker expression to an extent similar to that obtained with moderate-intensity continuous training. The latter finding is important from a public-health perspective given that “lack of time” and poor motivation remain the most common barriers to performing regular exercise [2]. In fact, LV-HIT significantly enhances maximal oxygen uptake in healthy and sedentary males [3,4]; it proved to be useful in improving body composition and muscle oxidative capacity in overweight women [5]. Lastly, it seems to be effective in reducing cardiovascular and dismetabolic risk factors [6,7]. Like HIT, football is an intermittent exercise that involves mul- tiple intense actions with high aerobic loading interspersed with low-intensity recovery periods. Because football is one of most popular team sports in the world, it has been extensively studied as a health-promoting activity for healthy participants of all ages and for groups of patients [8,9]. Many recent evidences indicated that short-term recreational football training (12e24 weeks) exerts positive effects on different markers related to the health, i.e. improvement in glucose ho- meostasis, decrease in total fat mass and improvement in aerobic * Corresponding author. DiSMEB-University Parthenope, Via Medina, 40, 80133 Naples, Italy. Tel.: þ39 081 7463146; fax: þ39 081 7464359. E-mail address: buono@uniparthenope.it (P. Buono). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Molecular and Cellular Probes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ymcpr http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mcp.2014.11.003 0890-8508/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Molecular and Cellular Probes 29 (2015) 43e47