Effects of exercise on microRNA expression level in human monocytes

Exercise leads to a rapid change in the profile of gene expression in monocytes. We hypothesized that microRNA expression in circulating monocytes would also be affected by brief exercise. Twelve healthy men (22-30yr old) performed 10 2-min bouts of cycle ergometer exercise interspersed with 1-min rest at a constant work equivalent to about82% of VO2max. A baseline blood sample was taken before the and immediately after the exercise. Monocytes were isolated from PBMC using a negative magnetic cell separation methods (Miltenyi Biotec Monocyte Isolation Kit II, human #130-091-153 and the autoMACS® Pro Separator). Total RNA was extracted using TRIzol®. For this study we used Agilent Human miRNA microarrays V2 (total of 24 arrays).