AUTHOR=Li Fan , Bai Muwei , Xu Jianfang , Zhu Ling , Liu Chengyi , Duan Rui
TITLE=Long-Term Exercise Alters the Profiles of Circulating Micro-RNAs in the Plasma of Young Women
JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physiology
VOLUME=11
YEAR=2020
URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physiology/articles/10.3389/fphys.2020.00372
DOI=10.3389/fphys.2020.00372
ISSN=1664-042X
ABSTRACT=Objective: The objective of this paper was to study the effects of long-term exercise on circulating microRNAs (miRNAs) in human plasma.
Methods: Whole blood was collected from 10 female elite athletes with at least 5 years of training experience in a Synchronized Swimming Group (S group) and 15 female college students without regular exercise training (C group). Plasma miRNAs were then isolated, sequenced, and semi-quantified by the second-generation sequencing technology, and the results were analyzed by bioinformatics methods.
Results: We found 380 differentially expressed miRNAs in the S group compared with the C group, among which 238 miRNAs were upregulated and 142 were downregulated. The top five abundant miRNAs in the 380 miRNAs of the S group are hsa-miR-451a, hsa-miR-486, hsa-miR-21-5p, hsa-miR-423-5p, and hsa-let-7b-5p. Muscle-specific/enriched miRNAs were not significantly different, except for miR-206 and miR-486. According to the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis, a large proportion of the differentially expressed miRNAs are targeted in cancer-related pathways, including proteoglycans in cancer and miRNAs in cancer and basal cell carcinoma. As the levels of circulating miRNAs (ci-miRNAs) are commonly known to be significantly deregulated in cancer patients, we further compared the levels of some well-studied miRNAs in different types of cancer patients with those in the S group and found that long-term exercise regulates the level of ci-miRNAs in an opposite direction to those in cancer patients.
Conclusion: Long-term exercise significantly alters the profiles of plasma miRNAs in healthy young women. It may reduce the risk of certain types of cancers by regulating plasma miRNA levels.