Evaluation of gene polymorphisms in exercise-induced oxidative stress and damage

Abstract

Many potentially significant genetic variants related to oxidative stress have been identified and performance in endurance sports is a multi-factorial phenotype. Thus, it was decided to investigate the influences of the haptoglobin (Hp), MnSOD (Val9Ala), CAT (21A/T), GPX1 (Pro198Leu), ACE, glutathione S-transferases M1 (GSTM1) and T1 (GSTT1) genes' polymorphisms on the oxidative stress and damage suffered by human athletes (runners). Blood samples taken immediately after a race were submitted to genotyping, comet and TBARS assays, biochemical analyses of creatine kinase (CK), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT). MnSOD significantly influenced results of CK and a possible association between Hp1F-1S and Hp1S-2 genotypes with a superior TBARS values was found. Higher or lower TBARS and CK values or DNA damage also depended on the interaction between Hp and ACE or GST genotypes, indicating that MnSOD and Hp polymorphisms can be determining factors in performance, at least for runners.

Keywords::

• Exercise-induced damage
• biochemical markers of tissue injuries (AST, ALT, CK)
• TBARS assay
• comet assay
• antioxidant enzyme polymorphisms

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the subjects who participated in this research, Sabin Institute/Sabin Laboratories and Farmacotécnica for technical support.

Declaration of interest: The authors gratefully acknowledge the University of Brasília (UnB), the National Council for Technological and Scientific Development (CNPq) and the Scientific and Technological Enterprises Foundation (FINATEC) for financial support. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.

This paper was first published online on Early Online on 27 January 2010.