Effects of acute endurance exercise on follistatin-like 1 and apelin in the circulation and metabolic organs in rats

Abstract

Context: Follistatin-like 1 (FSTL1) and apelin exert a favourable effect on energy metabolism.

Objective: We examined the effects of acute endurance exercise on the levels of FSTL1 and apelin in the serum and metabolic organs of rats.

Methods: Rats were divided into two groups: a sedentary control (CON, n = 8) group and exercise (EX, n = 8) group. The EX group was made to run on a treadmill at 15–30 m/min for 35 min. Immediately after exercise, the blood, skeletal muscles, adipose, heart, and liver were collected; the levels of FSTL1 and apelin were measured.

Results: Serum FSTL1 and apelin were significantly increased following acute exercise; in contrast, the levels of FSTL1 and apelin in the tissues were not affected.

Conclusions: Acute endurance exercise may stimulate the secretion of FSTL1 and apelin into the circulation, however, the origin of their increased secreted levels may not be the metabolic organs.

Keywords:

• Acute exercise
• adipo-myokine
• energy metabolism
• insulin sensitivity

Acknowledgements

We thank Prof. Motoyuki Iemitsu (Ritsumeikan University) for his advice regarding animal experiments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI under Grant Number 16K01744.