ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION Moderate physical training attenuates muscle-specific effects on fibre type composition in adult rats submitted to a perinatal maternal low-protein diet Carol Go ´is Leandro • Wellington da Silva Ribeiro • Jose ´ Anto ˆnio dos Santos • Adriano Bento-Santos • Carlos Henrique Lima-Coelho • Filippe Falca ˜o-Tebas • Cla ´udia Jacques Lagranha • Sandra Lopes-de-Souza • Raul Manha ˜es-de-Castro • Ana Elisa Toscano Received: 16 May 2011 / Accepted: 6 October 2011 Ó Springer-Verlag 2011 Abstract Aim To verify whether moderate physical training affects the muscle fibre composition of adult rats subjected to a low protein diet during the perinatal period. Methods Male Wistar rats were divided into two groups according to their mother’s diet during gestation and lac- tation: control (17% casein, C) and low-protein (8% casein, LP). On postnatal day 60, half of each group was submitted to moderate physical training (8 weeks, 5 days/week -1 , 60 min/day -1 , at 70% of VO 2max , T) or not. After the physical training period, soleus and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscles were removed. Myofibrillar ATPase staining was used to classify muscle fibres as type I, IIa, IIb, and intermediate. Results In the EDL muscle, LP rats showed no changes in the fibre type proportion. Both the C ? T and LP ? T groups showed a higher percentage of fibres of type IIa, and a lower proportion of fibres of type IIb. In the soleus muscle, LP animals showed a reduction in the proportion of fibre types I and intermediate. C ? T rats showed an increase in the fibre type I and IIa. In the LP ? T rats, the proportions of the fibre types remained similar to control rats. Conclusions Moderate physical training acts as a positive environmental stimulus that reverts the effects of a peri- natal low-protein diet on the proportion of fibre types in skeletal muscle. Keywords Perinatal undernutrition Á Physical exercise Á Programming Á Muscle type fibre Á Rats Introduction In humans, epidemiological studies have shown that there is an association between perinatal poor nutrition and increased fat mass, abdominal fatness, and reduced lean mass (muscle mass) in adult life [1, 2]. This reduced muscle mass can be related to early undernutrition-induced impaired development of muscle fibres [3]. In rats, two classical studies showed an association between perinatal undernutrition and the number of muscle fibres in different muscles [4, 5]. In the study of Bedi et al. [4], it was verified that there is a reduction in the counting of soleus and extensor digitorium longus (EDL) fibres (19 and 21% reductions, respectively) in adult offspring that suffered undernutrition during gestation and lactation. Wilson et al. [5] showed that severe undernutrition (restricted to 30% of normal food intake) during gestation induced a 19–34% deficit in fibre numbers in the soleus, as determined by counting every fibre in a muscle cross-section. C. G. Leandro (&) Á F. Falca ˜o-Tebas Á C. J. Lagranha Á A. E. Toscano Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, Nu ´cleo de Educac ¸a ˜o Fı ´sica e Cie ˆncias do Esporte, Centro Acade ˆmico de Vito ´ria CAV, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil e-mail: carolleandro22@gmail.com W. da Silva Ribeiro Á S. Lopes-de-Souza Department of Anatomy and Morphology, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil J. A. dos Santos Á A. Bento-Santos Department of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil C. H. Lima-Coelho Á R. Manha ˜es-de-Castro Department of Nutrition, Federal University of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil 123 Eur J Nutr DOI 10.1007/s00394-011-0259-3