COMBINATION OF AEROBIC EXERCISE TRAINING AND BERBERINE ATTENUATE KIDNEY CACHEXIA IN DIABETIC RATS BY INCREASING THE BCL-2/BAX RATIO

Abstract

Background: This study examined the effects of aerobic exercise training (AET) and berberine (BBR) supplementation on apoptosis indices in renal tissue of streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic Wistar rats. Methods: Forty-two Wistar rats were divided into two groups: control (Ctr) and aerobic exercise training (AET, 3 d/wk, 50-55% VO2max for 6 weeks), and four diabetic groups: diabetic (D), DAET, DBBR (50 mg/kg), and DAET+BBR. Diabetes was induced by intraperitoneal injection of STZ (60 mg/kg dissolved in 0.1 M citrate buffer, pH 4.5). The one-way ANOVA with LSD’s post-hoc test was used to determine the significance of differences between groups for caspase-3, Bax, Bcl-2, and Bcl-2 to Bax ratio. Results: The level of Bax in AET, DAET, and DAET+BBR were lower than the Ctr and D, with a greater improvement of the Bax level observed in the AET and DAET vs. DBBR. While the levels of caspase-3 and Bcl-2 showed no significant differences between groups, the level of Bcl-2 to Bax ratio exhibited a higher level only in the DAET+BBR compared to Ctr, D, AET, DAET, and BBR in the renal tissue. Conclusion: These results indicated that the synergetic treatment of aerobic exercise training combined with DBBR can possibly suppress the mitochondrial apoptosis pathway through increasing the Bcl-2 to Bax ratio in the kidney tissue of diabetic rats.