T. Murakami et al., DIFFERENTIAL ADAPTATION TO ENDURANCE TRAINING BETWEEN HEART AND GASTROCNEMIUS-MUSCLE MITOCHONDRIA IN RATS, Biochemistry and molecular biology international, 36(2), 1995, pp. 285-290
The effects of endurance training on mitochondrial gene expression and
replication in heart and gastrocnemius muscles were studied in rats.
Rats were trained for 12 weeks by treadmill running. Although the hear
t weight was significantly increased by the training, activity of cyto
chrome oxidase and concentrations of cytochrome b mRNA and mitochondri
al DNA in the heart were not altered by the training. On the other han
d, those in gastrocnemius muscle were increased about 1.5 fold by the
training. When these values were compared between heart and gastrocnem
ius muscles, they were 10, 3.3, and 1.7 fold, respectively, higher in
the former than in the latter. These results suggest that the mitochon
drial gene expression and enzyme activity for the oxidative capacity i
n heart are fairly high compared to those in skeletal muscle, therefor
e adaptation to the training in heart is attained by increasing the mu
scle mass, but not mitochondrial gene expression.