effect of swimming exercise to cardiac pgc-1 α and hif-1 α gene expression in mice

Background: hypoxia caused by exercise condition may alter pgc-1α and hif-1α expression in cardiac cells. both factors are tran- scriptional factors which play a role in conserving energy during metabolic process. however, there is less information about the effects of long term moderate intensity exercise such as swimming on pgc-1α and hif-1α expression in cardiac cells. objectives: aim of this study is to observe the effect of force swimming exercise on the expression pgc-1α and hif-1α gene expres- sion in cardiac muscle of mice. methods: male balbc mice were divided into two groups (n = 10): control (c) and swimming (st). st group was subjected to mod- erate intensity swimming for 4 weeks, 30 minutes/day for 5 days. hearts of animal models were preserved for cardiac morphology study using he staining, pgc-1α and hif-1α mrna expression study. results: we observed that cardiac pgc-1α expression in st was significantly increased 1.5 fold compared with control group (0.64 vs 0.44; ci = 95%, -0.378 - 0.019; p = 0.035), but expression of hif-1α was significantly decreased 0.4 times lower than control group (0.35 vs 0.52; ci = 95%, 0.27 - 0.31; p = 0,025). conclusions: taken together, st group increased the expression of pgc-1α but decreased the expression of hif-1α in mice cardiac muscle in response to chronic hypoxia condition.