Dataset Information

Establishing zebrafish as a novel exercise model: swimming economy, swimming-enhanced growth and muscle growth marker gene expression.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Zebrafish has been largely accepted as a vertebrate multidisciplinary model but its usefulness as a model for exercise physiology has been hampered by the scarce knowledge on its swimming economy, optimal swimming speeds and cost of transport. Therefore, we have performed individual and group-wise swimming experiments to quantify swimming economy and to demonstrate the exercise effects on growth in adult zebrafish. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Individual zebrafish (n?=?10) were able to swim at a critical swimming speed (U(crit)) of 0.548±0.007 m s(-1) or 18.0 standard body lengths (BL) s(-1). The optimal swimming speed (U(opt)) at which energetic efficiency is highest was 0.396±0.019 m s(-1) (13.0 BL s(-1)) corresponding to 72.26±0.29% of U(crit). The cost of transport at optimal swimming speed (COT(opt)) was 25.23±4.03 µmol g(-1) m(-1). A group-wise experiment was conducted with zebrafish (n?=?83) swimming at U(opt) for 6 h day(-1) for 5 days week(-1) for 4 weeks vs. zebrafish (n?=?84) that rested during this period. Swimming zebrafish increased their total body length by 5.6% and body weight by 41.1% as compared to resting fish. For the first time, a highly significant exercise-induced growth is demonstrated in adult zebrafish. Expression analysis of a set of muscle growth marker genes revealed clear regulatory roles in relation to swimming-enhanced growth for genes such as growth hormone receptor b (ghrb), insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor a (igf1ra), troponin C (stnnc), slow myosin heavy chain 1 (smyhc1), troponin I2 (tnni2), myosin heavy polypeptide 2 (myhz2) and myostatin (mstnb). CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: From the results of our study we can conclude that zebrafish can be used as an exercise model for enhanced growth, with implications in basic, biomedical and applied sciences, such as aquaculture.

SUBMITTER: Palstra AP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3013094 | biostudies-literature | 2010

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Establishing zebrafish as a novel exercise model: swimming economy, swimming-enhanced growth and muscle growth marker gene expression.

Palstra Arjan P AP Tudorache Christian C Rovira Mireia M Brittijn Sebastiaan A SA Burgerhout Erik E van den Thillart Guido E E J M GE Spaink Herman P HP Planas Josep V JV

PloS one 20101231 12

<h4>Background</h4>Zebrafish has been largely accepted as a vertebrate multidisciplinary model but its usefulness as a model for exercise physiology has been hampered by the scarce knowledge on its swimming economy, optimal swimming speeds and cost of transport. Therefore, we have performed individual and group-wise swimming experiments to quantify swimming economy and to demonstrate the exercise effects on growth in adult zebrafish.<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>Individual zebrafish (n ...[more]

PMID: 21217817

Similar Datasets

Project description:BACKGROUND: The adult skeletal muscle is a plastic tissue with a remarkable ability to adapt to different levels of activity by altering its excitability, its contractile and metabolic phenotype and its mass. We previously reported on the potential of adult zebrafish as a tractable experimental model for exercise physiology, established its optimal swimming speed and showed that swimming-induced contractile activity potentiated somatic growth. Given that the underlying exercise-induced transcriptional mechanisms regulating muscle mass in vertebrates are not fully understood, here we investigated the cellular and molecular adaptive mechanisms taking place in fast skeletal muscle of adult zebrafish in response to swimming. RESULTS: Fish were trained at low swimming speed (0.1 m/s; non-exercised) or at their optimal swimming speed (0.4 m/s; exercised). A significant increase in fibre cross-sectional area (1.290±88 vs. 1.665±106 ?m2) and vascularization (298±23 vs. 458±38 capillaries/mm2) was found in exercised over non-exercised fish. Gene expression profiling by microarray analysis evidenced the activation of a series of complex transcriptional networks of extracellular and intracellular signaling molecules and pathways involved in the regulation of muscle mass (e.g. IGF-1/PI3K/mTOR, BMP, MSTN), myogenesis and satellite cell activation (e.g. PAX3, FGF, Notch, Wnt, MEF2, Hh, EphrinB2) and angiogenesis (e.g. VEGF, HIF, Notch, EphrinB2, KLF2), some of which had not been previously associated with exercise-induced contractile activity. CONCLUSIONS: The results from the present study show that exercise-induced contractile activity in adult zebrafish promotes a coordinated adaptive response in fast muscle that leads to increased muscle mass by hypertrophy and increased vascularization by angiogenesis. We propose that these phenotypic adaptations are the result of extensive transcriptional changes induced by exercise. Analysis of the transcriptional networks that are activated in response to exercise in the adult zebrafish fast muscle resulted in the identification of key signaling pathways and factors for the regulation of skeletal muscle mass, myogenesis and angiogenesis that have been remarkably conserved during evolution from fish to mammals. These results further support the validity of the adult zebrafish as an exercise model to decipher the complex molecular and cellular mechanisms governing skeletal muscle mass and function in vertebrates.

Dataset Information

Establishing zebrafish as a novel exercise model: swimming economy, swimming-enhanced growth and muscle growth marker gene expression.

Publications

Establishing zebrafish as a novel exercise model: swimming economy, swimming-enhanced growth and muscle growth marker gene expression.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets