Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) Progress and Study Protocol Design

Abstract

Abstract Objectives Physical activity is beneficial to human health and wellbeing across the lifespan. The numerous benefits of regular physical activity (PA) have long been recognized. Despite this, most exercise studies are associational and the molecular mechanisms that are the bases for the beneficial effects remain obscure as are the mechanisms of multiorgan communications and benefits. MoTrPAC is a large NIH discovery project (19 grants; 37 Principal Investigators; 23 institutions) whose goals are to assemble a comprehensive map of the molecular changes that occur in response to exercise and provide insights into how they are altered by age, sex, body composition and fitness level and develop a user-friendly database to facilitate investigator-initiated studies and catalyze the field of PA research and explore hypotheses exploring novel mechanisms by which PA improves or preserves health. Methods This project will explore and document changes in molecules mobilized in blood, muscle and fat in humans as well as 15 additional tissues for rats in response to different aerobic and resistance exercise regimes. The human studies are a multicenter clinical trial cohort of people of both sexes from 10–80 years of age and recruitment has begun. Preclinical animal Studies (PASS) have been conducted in 6 and 18-month old F344 rats and tissues harvested from control inactive rats and rats at seven time-points following a single 30 minute acute bout of treadmill running. A separate group of rats were subjected to an intensive (70% VO2max) and progressive run training program of 5 day/week for 1,2, 4, or 8 weeks with 18 tissues collected. Multiple state of art and omics platforms including genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic, proteomic and metabolomics are being employed to define and discover the molecules mobilized in response to exercise. Results This presentation will highlight the study protocol design and data from the initial public data release (November 15th, 2019). Data will be available to the extramural community to collaborate with the MoTrPAC investigators to explore innovative mechanisms to expand the impact of the initial studies. Conclusions The product from this consortium will begin to characterize the molecular mechanisms of molecules identified in the ‘molecular map’ that underlie the beneficial effects of PA. Funding Sources National Institutes of Health.