The effect of ladder-climbing exercise on atrophy/hypertrophy-related myokine expression in middle-aged male Wistar rats

We investigated the change in myokine expression related to hypertrophy (IL-4, IL-6, IL-10) and atrophy (TNF-α, NFκB, IL-1β) in middle-aged rats after resistance exercise with ladder climbing. 50- and 10-week-old male Wistar rats were randomly assigned to two groups: the sedentary and exercise groups. The exercise groups underwent a ladder-climbing exercise for 8 weeks. While the tibialis anterior muscle mass in the young group significantly increased after the ladder-climbing exercise, the middle-aged group did not show any changes after undergoing the same exercise. To understand the molecular mechanism causing this difference, we analyzed the change in hypertrophy- and atrophy-related myokine levels from the tibialis anterior muscle. After 8 weeks of ladder-climbing exercise, the IL-4 and IL-10 protein levels did not change. However, the IL-6 level significantly increased after exercise training, but the amount of increase in the young training group was higher than in the middle-aged training group. IL-1β and TNF-α as well as NFκB protein levels were significantly higher in the middle-aged group than in the young group. Except for TNF-α, exercise training did not affect IL-1β and NFκB protein levels. The TNF-α level significantly decreased in the middle-aged exercise training group. AMPK and PGC-1α levels also significantly increased after exercise training, but there was no difference between age-related groups. Therefore, 8-week high-intensity exercise training using ladder climbing downregulates the skeletal muscle production of myokine involved in atrophy and upregulates hypertrophic myokine. However, the extent of these responses was lower in the middle-aged than young group.