Cancer is a result of aberrant regulation of apoptosis. Apoptosis is a programmed cell death, it is essential for the normal development of organisms to play a critical role in removing unwanted and potentially dangerous cells (tumor cells or cells in...
Cancer is a result of aberrant regulation of apoptosis. Apoptosis is a programmed cell death, it is essential for the normal development of organisms to play a critical role in removing unwanted and potentially dangerous cells (tumor cells or cells infected by virus).
HSP (Heat Shock Protein) is one of the quintessential regulator of apoptosis. It has strong cyto-protective effects and behaves as molecular chaperones for other cellular proteins. But in cancer, HSP has been correlated with tumor progression by inhibiting apoptotic pathway. Exercise is one of the stressor inducing overexpression of HSPs, thus it protects against inappropriate apoptosis of aging cell or normal cells. But the protective role of exercise-induced HSPs in tumor cells is unknown so far.
Therefore the present study is to investigate the accurate biological mechanisms in the association between exercise and expression patterns of heat shock protein (HSP) and apoptosis in mouse colon cancer cell based on exercise intensity.
Firstly, to identify the protective effect of exercise the protocol is as follows. ICR (n=20) mice were divided into 4 groups as follows: (1) control group (n=5, Con), (2) Low-intensity exercise group (n=5, LIE), (3) Moderate-intensity exercise group (n=5, MIE), (4) High-intensity exercise group (n=5, HIE). To induce colon cancer we injected one AOM (10mg/kg) and administrated 3 cycles of DSS solution. Exercise groups were subjected to exercise at a different speed on a treadmill for 12 weeks before and after injection (10, 18, 27 m/min, 30 min, 5 days/week, 0% grade). We performed TUNEL assay for apoptosis in colon tissue and expression level of HSP70 was analyzed using IHC staining.
Results show that apoptosis in cancer cell in exercise groups (LIE, MIE) were significantly increased (p<.01), but the HSP70 expression in exercise groups was not markedly increased as compared with control group (p<.05).
Secondly, to identify the treatment effect of exercise the protocol is as follows. ICR (n=29) mice were divided into 4 groups as follows: (1) control group (n=8, Con), (2) Low-intensity exercise group (n=6, LIE), (3) Moderate-intensity exercise group (n=7, MIE), (4) High-intensity exercise group (n=8, HIE). All mice were induced colon cancer with the same method, then the mice of exercise groups ran on a treadmill for 12 weeks only after tumor evaluation. We counted the number of polyps and the level of caspase-3, p53 and HSP70 which were analyzed using Real time RT-PCR and Western blot.
Results show that the number of polyps was decreased (p<.05, P<.01) in exercise groups (MIE, HIE). Caspase-3, proapoptotic protein, was significantly increased (p<.001, p<.001. P<.01) in all exercise groups (LIE, MIE, HIE). Also, p53, tumor suppresser gene was markedly increased (p<.001, p<.05) in exercise groups (LIE, MIE). But the HSP70 expression in exercise groups were not significantly increased as compared with control group (p<.05).
These results suggest that there was no overexpression of HSPs by exercise in tumor cell, thus the protective role of exercise-induced HSPs did not occurred. However exercise reduced the number of polyps in colon cancer and induced overexpression of proapoptotic proteins with the different mechanisms, regular treadmill exercise may be helpful to prevent and treat colon cancer.