Forced intensity-controlled endurance training on a small-animal treadmill machine inducing murine cardiac hypertrophy

Endurance training is associated with decreased cardiovascular-related morbidity and mortality. Cardiac hypertrophy is an adaptive mechanism of the heart in response to volume and pressure overload. Nonetheless, murine exercise models for cardiac hypertrophy are still under discussion. Using a small-animal treadmill, a forced intensity controlled training model was conducted to characterize cardiac hypertrophy in mice utilizing multimodal analyses. Wild-type male C57BL/6 mice age between 5-8 weeks old were subjected to 8 weeks of forced endurance training using a small-animal treadmill or sedentary age-matched control. Transcriptomic analysis of 8-week training hearts was evaluated using RNA sequencing. RNA sequencing revealed several genes involved in the cell cycle, apoptosis, contractile protein expression, and organ growth that were among the most differentially regulated genes after 8-weeks of exercise. Overall design: Wild-type mice were randomly assigned to forced endurance training or sedentary counterparts. Forced exercise training was performed using a dedicated small-animal treadmill (Panlab Harvard Apparatus, Holliston, Massachusetts).