Abstract

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. With advancing age, the skeletal muscle extracellular matrix (ECM) undergoes fibrotic changes that may lead to increased muscle stiffness, injury susceptibility and strength loss. This study tested the potential of different exercises to counter these changes by stimulating the activity of genes associated with ECM remodeling. Twenty-six healthy men (66.9 ± 3.9 years) were stratified to two of four groups, performing unilateral (i) conventional resistance exercise, (ii) conventional resistance exercise followed by self-myofascial release (CEBR), (iii) eccentric-only exercise (ECC) or (iv) plyometric jumps (PLY). The non-trained leg served as control. Six hours post-exercise, vastus lateralis muscle biopsy samples were analyzed for the expression of genes associated with ECM collagen synthesis (COL1A1), matrix metallopeptidases (collagen degradation; MMPs) and peptidase inhibitors (TIMP1). Significant between-group differences were found for MMP3, MMP15 and TIMP1, with the greatest responses in MMP3 and TIMP1 seen in CEBR and in MMP15 in ECC. MMP9 (3.24–3.81-fold change) and COL1A1 (1.47–2.40-fold change) were increased in CEBR and PLY, although between-group differences were non-significant. The expression of ECM-related genes is exercise-specific, with CEBR and PLY triggering either earlier or stronger remodeling than other stimuli. Training studies will test whether execution of such exercises may help counter age-associated muscle fibrosis.

RAS ID

32423

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

2020

ISSN

16616596

Volume

21

Issue

19

Funding Information

Austrian Science Fund

School

School of Medical and Health Sciences

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

MDPI

Comments

Gumpenberger, M., Wessner, B., Graf, A., Narici, M. V., Fink, C., Braun, S., ... Csapo, R. (2020). Remodeling the skeletal muscle extracellular matrix in older age—Effects of acute exercise stimuli on gene expression. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 21(19), article 7089. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21197089

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.3390/ijms21197089