Effects of exercise on miRNA expression level in human NK Cells

Exercise leads to a rapid change in the profile of gene expression in NK cells. We hypothesized that microRNA expression in circulating NK cells would also be affected by brief exercise. Eleven healthy men (20-29 yr old) performed 10 2-min bouts of cycle ergometer exercise interspersed with 1-min rest at a constant work equivalent to about 77% of VO2max. A baseline blood sample was taken before the and immediately after the exercise. NK cells were isolated from PBMC using a negative magnetic cell separation methods (Miltenyi Biotec Kit #130-092-657 and the autoMACS® Pro Separator). Total RNA was extracted using TRIzol®. For this study we used Agilent Human miRNA microarrays V2 (total of 22 chips).