The effects of exercise on gene expression in abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue

Exercise improves health and well-being across diverse organ systems, and elucidating mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of exercise on health can lead to new therapies for disease. We find that exercise training in humans causes profound changes in subcutaneous adipose tissue (scWAT) gene expression, including genes encoding secreted proteins. In addition, we used our previously published microarray dataset derived from scWAT from mice housed in static cages (sedentary controls) or mice housed in cages with running wheels for 11 days. Genes that were significantly changed by exercise training in humans and mice were further selected by annotation for Extracellular Space in Gene Ontology. Of these genes, the most significantly correlated with the total wheel running distance in the trained mice was Tgfb2. We validated that exercise training increased TGFB2 mRNA in scWAT of human subjects using RT-qPCR. This led us to hypothesize that TGF-β2 is an exercise-induced adipokine. To determine the therapeutic potential and mechanism for increased TGF-β2, we investigated mouse models of exercise training and obesity. Our findings indicate that exercise training improves metabolism through inter-organ communication with fat via a TGF-β2 signaling, providing a novel mechanism for counteracting metabolic disease. Biopsies of abdominal abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue (scWAT) were taken from healthy young male subjects before and after 12 weeks of exercise training. The exercise training protocol consisted of 60-80 minutes cycling/day, 5 days/week.