A PERIOD OF ANAEROBIC EXERCISE INCREASES THE ACCUMULATION OF REACTIVECARBONYL DERIVATIVES IN THE LUNGS OF RATS

It is known that acute physical exercise may have diverse pathophysiol ogical consequences in various organs due to free radical formation. W e have investigated whether a period of anaerobic running to exhaustio n in rats results in oxidative modification of proteins in the lungs. Six rats of an exercised group (E) ran for two periods of 5 min at a s peed of 30 m.min(-1) followed by a recovery period of 5 min, and then by a third period of running to exhaustion. Reactive carbonyl derivati ves (RCD) were measured by the Western blot technique on lungs of E an d control (C) rats. In addition, the activity of glutamine synthetase (GS) was also monitored as marker of oxidative damage to proteins. Thi s investigation revealed significant exercise-induced increases in acc umulation of RCD in the lungs of the E group compared with the C group . The RCD signals were visibly stronger in proteins with molecular wei ght of 55 kDa and 32 kDa. The activity of GS was higher by about 30% i n E rats than in C rats. The present data suggest that anaerobic exerc ise induces protein oxidation in the lungs.