The health advantages of working out are commonly recognized, but recent findings reveal that the body’s reaction to exercise is more intricate and extensive than previously believed. A team of researchers conducted a study on rats and discovered that physical activity triggers numerous cellular and molecular changes in all 19 of the organs they examined in the animals.
Researchers analyzed the cellular and molecular changes in all 19 of the organs they studied in the animals.
Physical activity has been shown to reduce the risk of many diseases, but there is still limited understanding of how exercise impacts the body at a molecular level. Most studies have primarily focused on a single organ, sex, or specific time period, and have only included a small amount of data.
In order to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of exercise on biology, scientists from the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) utilized a variety of techniques in the laboratory to examine molecular changes in rats as they underwent several weeks of rigorous exercise.The researchers’ findings were published in the journal Nature. The team examined various tissues from the animals, including the heart, brain, and lungs. They discovered that each of the organs they studied underwent changes with exercise, aiding the body in regulating the immune system, responding to stress, and controlling pathways associated with inflammatory liver disease, heart disease, and tissue injury.
The data offer potential insights into numerous human health conditions. For instance, the researchers identified a potential explanation for why the liver becomes less fatty during exercise, which could contribute to the development of new treatments for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.as a way to comprehensively study the effects of physical activity on the human body at the molecular level. The team’s ultimate goal is to use the knowledge gained to develop personalized exercise regimens or treatments for those who are unable to engage in physical activity. This includes individuals with conditions such as fatty liver disease. The MoTrPAC project has already begun conducting studies on people to observe the molecular impact of exercise. Established in 2016, the initiative has brought together scientists from various prestigious institutions to investigate the biological mechanisms that contribute to the positive outcomes of exercise on health. Originally developed by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Stanford University, the National Institutes of Health, and other organizations, MoTrPAC aims to uncover the underlying biological processes of exercise benefits.article. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the American Heart Association, and the Fondation Leducq.The manuscript states that a group of scientists with diverse scientific expertise worked together to collect and combine a large amount of high-quality data. According to Carr, a co-senior author of the study, this is the first time a complete map of an entire organism has been created to analyze the effects of training on multiple organs. The team has also made all of the animal data accessible in an online public repository for other scientists to use. This resource has already led to potentially new biological discoveries for further exploration.The lungs of female rats showed an increase in abundance after eight weeks of regular treadmill exercise, while the RNA response to exercise was observed in all organs of male and female rats over time.
Comprehensive analysis of the whole body
Executing such a large and comprehensive study required extensive planning. “The level of coordination that all participating labs had to accomplish for this study was remarkable,” Clish stated.
In collaboration with Sue Bodine at the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa, whose team collected tissue samples from animals after undergoing up to eight weeks of training, other members of the MoTrPAC team divided the samples u.Carr’s team analyzed proteins while Clish’s team studied metabolites, and other labs also examined virtually identical samples. “A lot of large-scale studies only focus on one or two data types,” said Natalie Clark, a computational scientist in Carr’s group. “But here we have a breadth of many different experiments on the same tissues, and that’s given us a global overview of how all of these different molecular layers contribute to exercise response.” In total, the teams conducted nearly 10,000 assays, making about 15 million measurements on blood and 18 solid tissues. They found thatThe impact of exercise reached thousands of molecules, with the most significant changes occurring in the adrenal gland. This gland is responsible for producing hormones that play a crucial role in regulating important bodily processes such as immunity, metabolism, and blood pressure. The researchers also discovered differences between the sexes in various organs, particularly in relation to the immune response over time. They found that the levels of most immune-signaling molecules unique to females changed between one and two weeks of training, while in males, the changes occurred between four and eight weeks.
However, there were also some responses that were consistent across both sexes and various organs. For example, the researchers noted changes in the levels of heat-shock proteins, which are produced as a response to stress.
The researchers discovered that certain proteins, produced by cells in response to stress, were uniformly regulated across various tissues. However, they also found that there were specific insights related to individual tissues. The team was surprised to find an increase in acetylation of mitochondrial proteins responsible for energy production, as well as a phosphorylation signal that controls energy storage, in the liver during exercise. These changes could potentially reduce the liver’s fat content and its susceptibility to disease with exercise, offering a potential target for future treatments of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
“Even though the liver is not directly involved in exercise, it still undergoes changes.”It was unexpected to find that there were changes in acetylation and phosphorylation in the liver after exercise training, as mentioned by Jean-Beltran. This demonstrates the complexity of exercise as a process, and we are just beginning to understand it. Hasmik Keshishian, a senior group leader in Carr’s group and co-author of the study, highlighted the importance of carefully designing a study and processing samples, and now the results of their work are providing valuable biological insights.Findings from the high quality data we and others have collected are yielding interesting results. Other MoTrPAC papers published today go into more detail about the response of fat and mitochondria in different tissues to exercise. More MoTrPAC studies are currently investigating the effects of exercise on young adult and older rats, as well as the short-term effects of 30-minute bouts of physical activity. The consortium has also started human studies and is recruiting about 1,500 individuals of diverse ages, sexes, ancestries, and activity levels for a clinical trial to study the effects of both endurance and resistance exercise in children and adults.
