Circulating microRNAs as mediators of metabolic adaptation promoted by aerobic exercise in obesity

Abstract

Worldwide the rate of obesity has nearly doubled since 1980, with just over 200 million adult men and just under 300 million adult women obese. The metabolic and anatomic effects of excess adiposity can lead to the development of type 2 diabetes, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), dyslipidemia and high blood pressure. Physical exercise, dietary and behavioral changes are nonpharmacological interventions in the prevention and management of obesity and obesity-related diseases. Despite the fact it is well known the benefits of exercising, the molecular mechanisms that correlate training with improvements in insulin resistance and NAFLD are not fully elucidated. Since the discovery that myokines are produced by contracting skeletal muscle and that may have autocrine, paracrine or endocrine action, it is clear that physical exercise can exert influence on the crosstalk between skeletal muscle and distal organs. It has recently been shown that exosomal microRNAs derived from adipose tissue may have action in the regulation of liver gene expression, which raised the possibility of such phenomenon not being restricted only to adipose tissue and liver interaction. Therefore, the objective of this project is to evaluate in animal model treated with high-fat diet and exposed to physical exercise if skeletal muscle-derived extracellular vesicle microRNAs can have action in the regulation of the gene expression in distal organs resulting in improvements of obesity and obesity-related diseases. (AU)