Abstract
The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that skeletal muscle adaptations
induced by long-term resistance training (RT) are associated with increased myogenic
regulatory factors (MRF) and insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) mRNA expression
in rats skeletal muscle. Male Wistar rats were divided into 4 groups: 8-week control (C8), 8-week trained (T8), 12-week
control (C12) and 12-week trained (T12). Trained rats were submitted to a progressive
RT program (4 sets of 10–12 repetitions at 65–75% of the 1RM, 3 day/week), using a
squat-training apparatus with electric stimulation. Muscle hypertrophy was determined
by measurement of muscle fiber cross-sectional area (CSA) of the muscle fibers, and
myogenin, MyoD and IGF-I mRNA expression were measured by RT-qPCR. A hypertrophic
stabilization occurred between 8 and 12 weeks of RT (control-relative % area increase,
T8: 29% vs. T12: 35%; p>0.05) and was accompanied by the stabilization of myogenin
(control-relative % increase, T8: 44.8% vs. T12: 37.7%, p>0.05) and MyoD (control-relative
% increase, T8: 22.9% vs. T12: 22.3%, p>0.05) mRNA expression and the return of IGF-I
mRNA levels to the baseline (control-relative % increase, T8: 30.1% vs. T12: 1.5%,
p<0.05). Moreover, there were significant positive correlations between the muscle
fiber CSA and mRNA expression for MyoD (r=0.85, p=0.0001), myogenin (r=0.87, p=0.0001),
and IGF-I (r=0.88, p=0.0001). The significant (p<0.05) increase in myogenin, MyoD
and IGF-I mRNA expression after 8 weeks was not associated with changes in the fiber-type
frequency. In addition, there was a type IIX/D-to-IIA fiber conversion at 12 weeks,
even with the stabilization of MyoD and myogenin expression and the return of IGF-I
levels to baseline. These results indicate a possible interaction between MRFs and
IGF-I in the control of muscle hypertrophy during long-term RT and suggest that these
factors are involved more in the regulation of muscle mass than in fiber-type conversion.
Key words
muscle hypertrophy - fiber-type - strength training - myogenic regulatory factor -
insulin-like growth factor