Abstract
ABSTRACTThis study investigated the effects of six weeks of normobaric hypoxic training on transcriptional expression of the genes associated with mitochondrial and glycolytic activities in Thoroughbred horses. Eight horses were divided into two groups of four. They completed an identical incremental, moderate intensity training program, except that one group trained in a hypoxic chamber with 15% oxygen for 30 min on alternate days except Sundays (HT), while the other group trained in normal air (NC). Prior to and post training, heart rate and blood lactate were measured during an incremental treadmill test. Muscle biopsy samples were taken prior to and 24 h post the training period for qPCR analysis of mRNA changes in VEGF, PPARγ, HIF-1α, PGC-1α, COX4, AK3, LDH, PFK, PKm and SOD-2. No significant differences between the HT and NC were detected by independent-samples t-test with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (P>0.05) in relative changes of mRNA abundance. There were no significant differences between groups for heart rate and blood lactate during the treadmill test. The outcomes indicated that this hypoxia training program did not cause a significant variation in basal level expression of the selected mRNAs in Thoroughbreds as compared with normoxic training.
Highlights
The quest for more effective and efficient training methods that result in optimal performance outcomes is a continuing area of interest in both human and equine fields, and in accordance with this, hypoxic training methods have been the focus of considerable scientific investigations on human athletes for several decades
The general linear model with repeated measures (GLMRM) analysis on the ΔCt of mRNAs found no significant main effect of ‘training’ and interaction of ‘training by group’ for most mRNAs, except that the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) showed a significant training effect (F=6.808, P=0.040) and post hoc analysis indicated a significant increase post training in the normoxic control (NC) group; and PPARγ showed a significant interaction (F=6.609, P=0.042), and the post hoc analysis indicated that the NC had a trend of increase and the hypoxic training (HT) had a trend of decrease (Table 1)
The results of this study showed that there were generally no significant differences between the NC and HT groups after six weeks of training for most of the investigated mRNAs, as well as the blood lactate and heart rate responses to an incremental treadmill test
Summary
The quest for more effective and efficient training methods that result in optimal performance outcomes is a continuing area of interest in both human and equine fields, and in accordance with this, hypoxic training methods have been the focus of considerable scientific investigations on human athletes for several decades. Received 28 June 2016; Accepted 31 May 2017 allow the oxygen concentration to be lowered to varying levels within the chamber but at normal barometric air pressure (i.e. normobaric hypoxia). This reduced oxygen concentration may result in a reduced availability of oxygen for the cells
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