Editorial Science, Jan 24 (EFE).- Exercise is good not only for the musculoskeletal system, but also for the lungs, the heart and the nervous system, but how do the tissues of the body respond to it orchestrally? What are the molecular mechanisms behind this beneficial effect? Is it the same in young and old?
New research using the genomic sequence of 14 types of mouse tissue samples seeks to answer these and other questions, concluding that exercise provides comprehensive health benefits throughout the body. The research is published in The Innovation magazine, from the Cell group.
The scientific team is led by the Spanish Juan Carlos Izpisúa, director of the Altos laboratories in San Diego (United States), and researchers from various Chinese centers participate.
Physical exercise profoundly affects multiple tissues and is accepted to be beneficial to many aspects of human health. “Since it involves multiple tissues and organs in synchronized and integrated activities, it ultimately benefits physical and mental health,” the authors describe in their article.
However, how tissues and organs coordinate to perform such whole-body physiological functions “is poorly understood,” they add.
“Here we present a single-cell resolution of the effect of exercise for 12 months in 14 mouse tissues and how this influences the reprogramming of the animal’s health in different aspects such as the immune system, the circadian rhythm or the heart”, summarizes EFE Izpisúa .
According to the Spanish researcher, this is a “very valuable” study to further investigate the therapeutic potential of some targets identified to improve quality of life during ageing, as well as some diseases associated with it.
To reach their conclusions, the team subjected young and old mice to 12 months of exercise and from there built a single-cell atlas that reveals some molecular mechanisms responsible for the beneficial effect of exercise on health and aging.
In general, exercise protects tissues from infectious lesions, although more effectively in young animals, and benefits older animals in terms of inflammation suppression and tissue rejuvenation, with structural improvement in the nervous system being more decisive. central and systemic circulation.
Thus, following this period on the spinning wheel, the body weight of those exercising mice was reduced and the general physiological state remained stable compared to the control groups.
The young and old who exercised presented, for example, better motor coordination and endurance, as well as better grip strength – these parameters decreased over time in sedentary mice.
Long-term exercise also improved spatial learning and memory in aged mice.
More at the molecular level, the researchers found, for example, that during aging the concentration of AST/ALT transaminases (enzymes) increases, a prognostic indicator of liver damage, but this does not occur in older mice that exercised.
In addition, they verified how exercise dampens the activity of pro-inflammatory genes that gets out of control with ageing.
The team also found that the circadian rhythm – the biological clock that controls physiological processes in our bodies in 24-hour cycles – seen in old mice following exercise is more or less identical to that of a healthy young mouse.
Behind the correct functioning of this clock is, among others, the action of the BMAL1 protein; the researchers saw that exercise restored its expression levels.
“The generation of this unicellular atlas in various organs and tissues has helped us to reveal some of the molecular mechanisms responsible for the beneficial effect of exercise on health and aging,” concludes Concepción Rodríguez, also from Altos and author of the Article. EFE
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