the effect of metformin along with high-intensity interval training on gene expression of foxo1 and atrogin-1 in type 2 diabetic mice

Background and aims: muscle atrophy is a complication of type 2 diabetes, in which the expression of atrophy-related genes is increased. the present study aimed to investigate the effect of high-intensity interval training (hiit) and metformin on gene expression of two atrophy-related genes (i.e., foxo1 and atrogin-1) in the skeletal muscle of diabetic mice. methods: a total of 30 mice (c57bl/6) were assigned to two groups: control (n=6), and high-fat diet (hfd) (n=24). the mice in the hfd group were fed a hdf for 16 weeks. then, diabetes was induced in mice by hfd. then, they were divided into 4 groups as follows: (i) diabetic control, (ii) diabetes + metformin (dm), (iii) diabetes + hiit (dh), and (iv) diabetes + metformin + hiit (dmh). the dm group took metformin, the hiit group performed a hiit program, and the dmh group had both hiit and metformin. the real-time pcr methods were used to measure the mrna expression of foxo1 and atrogin-1. results: the findings showed that hfd-induced diabetes caused increases in the expression of foxo1 (p=0.0006) and atrogin-1 (p=0.0008), and hiit could restrain these increments (p=0.086, p=0.041). however, the decreasing effect of metformin on the expression of these genes was not significant (p=0.15) and the combined effect of hiit and metformin on the expression of these genes was not greater than the individual effect of hiit (p=0.64). conclusion: these results indicated that hiit (but not metformin) may prevent type 2 diabetes-induced downregulation of foxo1 and atrogin-1 in skeletal muscle, and metformin could not affect the impact of the training on these atrophy-related genes.