Transcriptome responses of duodenal epithelial cells to endurance swimming in female rats.. Rattus norvegicus

Intestinal calcium absorption is the sole pathway to supply calcium to the body and duodenum is the most efficient site of calcium absorption. Endurance exercise with moderate intensity significantly increased the intestinal calcium absorption. The unloaded non-impact excercise, such as swimming may enhance calcium absorption. However, the cellular and molecular mechanisms of this change have not been investigated. Thus, a genome-wide study by using microarray should reveal changes in the expression of several transporter genes in the intestinal absorptive cells of swimming excercised rats. Keywords: Gene expression; Comparative genomic hybridization Overall design: Twelve rats were randomly divided into control and swimming groups. Swimming rats were initially trained for a week until they could swim non stop 1 hour/day. Swimming frequency was 5 days/week for 2 weeks. The age-matched control remained sedentary for 2 weeks in a swimming pool. At the end of the swimming protocol, the intestinal segments of rats were removed for total RNA extraction and microarray study.