Impact of exercise training on endothelial transcriptional profiles in healthy swine: A genome-wide microarray analysis

While the salutary effects of exercise training on conduit artery endothelial cells have been reported in animals and humans with cardiovascular risk factors or disease, whether a healthy endothelium is alterable with exercise training is less certain. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of exercise training on transcriptional profiles in normal endothelial cells using a genome-wide microarray analysis. Brachial and internal mammary endothelial gene expression was compared between a group of healthy pigs that exercise-trained for 16-20 weeks (n=8) and a group that remained sedentary (n=8). We found that a total of 130 genes were up regulated and 84 genes down regulated in brachial artery endothelial cells with exercise training. In contrast, a total of 113 genes were up regulated and 31 genes down regulated in internal mammary artery endothelial cells (>1.5-fold and false discovery rate<15%). Although there was an overlap of 66 genes (59 up regulated and 7 down regulated with exercise training) between the brachial and internal mammary arteries, the identified endothelial gene networks and biological processes influenced by exercise training were distinctly different between the brachial and internal mammary arteries. These data indicate that a healthy endothelium is indeed responsive to exercise training and support the concept that the influence of physical activity on endothelial gene expression is not homogenously distributed throughout the vasculature.

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Padilla J, Simmons GH, Davis JW, Whyte JJ, Zderic TW, Hamilton MT, Bowles DK, Laughlin MH